Twisted DIRT Forums

Just curious.I never was into MCM1.I got hooked on MCM2 instead and when I learned you can download and make your own tracks,I was even more into it.It has been close to 3 years that I have been into trackmaking,almost 2 since I got really good at it,and it's been exactly one year since I uploaded my first worthy track.I learned from asking LOTS of questions here,making some friends through here and ALOT of reading EVERY tut I could.It's paid off for me.I am curious,and here are my questions:
1.Who was the first ever track creator?
2.How on earth did you ever figure this stuff out? Photoshop,making tex,importing...all that stuff.
I was just curious how this all came about,thats all.It's all easy for me now,but I was wondering how you guys did it with no one to help out like we all have now.

Bruce can probably answer this, although I'm not sure that even he was there from the VERY beginning.  I can't even remember when I got start but it was sometime in '99, about a year after MCM1's release.  Initially everyone was making SX tracks because it was easy using the MCM1 track editor.  Rainbow posted a complete set of instructions on how to make nationals and I believe that everyone started from there (not sure though).  I'm sure there are several old timers out there who know how it all started...

Jeff

Krazyman, I did once have the first ever MCM1 user created track, but the name and creator I cant remember. It may come back to me. That first track was a big breakthrough back then because the information for making a track, that rainbow released, at the time was sketchy. Several programs were need to create a track. For MCM1 the tracks ran on several files, not 1 .env file like mcm2 does. Going by some foggy memory, and Bruce can correct me on this, you needed a paint program for the textures,game pic and displacment map (tga). Then there were some small utilities needed, MCMSpline editor, and tga2asc.exe and maketerr.exe. From these programs you would compile your .ter (terrain) file, .dat (spline) .tga (gamepic). Your .scn file all you had to do was edit an existing file (change track name, sky(.cub) and grid area) Put these and you sky (.cub) file in your national folder and away you go. It was a lot more work back then just to get a working track then it is now with 1 program which does everything for you. (compiling)
Some of the big breakthroughs for MCM1 back then was making your own sky, and Krackerjack figuring out how to make a large grid national. Anyone remember Krackerjack Acres? About 6 months before MCM2 came out, someone figured out how to skin and bike and a rider. If I recall the bike sound could be changed too.

So for MCM2 rainbow decided to package the track files into one .env. This was to avoid "hackers" from opening and editing a track, which coincedently was never a problem in MCM1..go figure. A few of us old school track makers then thought it was the end of the world that rainbow was coming out with the "does it all" program. We predicted then everyone and theyre dog was going to be pounding out tracks. You see at the time the trackmaker of the day was an ingenious type of person, they were not only smart enough to get a track to work, but had the artistic touch to make a very enjoyable track to ride. There were far less poor quality "first timer" tracks back then then there is now. I remember on mcmempire 90% of new tracks uploaded were very good and worthy of downloading.

The first MCM2 created track was either Spawn's Green Hill Bluffs 3 or RonRons Golf Course one(Again i forget the name)
As for your second question, its a little vague. Are you talking about all the utilities TD made to enhance track making? The basics of making a track, Rainbow had documented it all for us, both mcm1 and 2. TD utilities, well these guys are into computer science, coding, decompiling ect.

Theres some of my sketchy memories....

(I think the first mcm1 track was made by Lonewolf)

I made some killer sx tracks with the built in block editor 

I was the first to change the MCM1 bike model hehe, I cant believe Rainbow released MCM1 with that horrible bike lol.

I remember for MCM1 making TMX 99 which is Twisted Motocross in MCM2 that we had to make the spline in Max and export it with some plugin, I think that changed though with some editor which was made after the time I made TMX 99 which was prob one of the first tracks with the SX style jumps instead of the jumps built into the ground like how the tutorial explained.

You could change the bike models?  I didn't know that.    You got any pics of your old ones Twist?

The night that the tools were released for making tracks for MCM1 a guy Name X_Lonewolf had a beta of a new track to test, this was a tweaked over stock disp map that came as a example from the tool set.
The next day two User created tracks came out. One was from Lonewolf and I cant remember the name "something Revenge" Another guy named Tincrunch had a track named OOP that he also u/l for everyone to d/l.
The track OOP was exactly just that, lol it was nasty. Tincrunch and Lonewolf went on to be 2 of the favorite track makers back for mcm1.

the first creator to release a track for mcm2 was K2Rider    i know that 100% sure

Yeah I editied the SLT number values to change the shape of the bike, it was alot of work to change it though, lines and lines of code had to be changed and tested.

WOW.  Big difference wasn't there. 

Yeah, that was an awesome fix for those bikes!  I remember downloading the MCM1 demo and hating the bike so much that I held off on buying the game for a few months.  When I realized how much more realistic it was compared to other games of that time (Motoracer1/2), I went out and bought the game and was forever hooked.

The bike mod was a must for anyone who played the game IMHO.  Back then the bike models were in text file format so you could edit them and make a new model.  Like AUS_Twisted said, you had to guess and do a lot of trial and error to make the bike look right.  Cool memories... 

Jeff

Thanks for all your answers....very informative.

For old farts sake, id like to get some more posts in here, Im sure Gravy, Budderbean, UFO_Showtime and Bruce could throw a few bones in here.
Motoman, thats the name i was trying to recall.....Tincrunch made the very first user created track. But I dont think it was soon after rainbow released the files/data. Im sure it was a couple months...I may be wrong.
Xtimes for me was the BIG thing with racing MCM1. Then came ORN, it too was very popular. Tons of people playing the game all the time on the Zone too. Holy crap that seems like a long time ago, only 6 years though!

Maui once floated the idea of writing a history of the MCM2 community from the start, i'd like to read that if it gets written. Some interesting stuff here but like WFO says a lot more to be added.

Laurie

Thats wild! I had an idea just latley to make a history timeline of MCM1/2. A huge undertaking though and would probably never be completed..so much information!

Ah the days of the ORN...... ho hum.     I can remember when we had Central, the orn, and mcmwharehouse.  Those were the days.  But yes, like laurie said.  There is still much more to be added.

A lot of people think MTX will out do MCM2.  I am still kinda skepticle on the whole thing.  It is kinda hard to let go of a game that you have put so many years of your life into. lol

I dug up the rainbow website for mcm1....its still up after 6 years! Theres even a little history of the game posted. Look here Scroll to the bottom to start at the beginning. An interesting read.

Heres a snip from the page.

October 1996
Rainbow game designer Robb Rinard envisions a crusty future. Based on the performances of the riders in the Fleshwound Film "Crusty Demons of Dirt," Motocross Madness is conceived. The concept seemed to fit all the necessary criteria to become a reality. The publisher liked the concept and there was a serious need in the gaming market for someone to take motocross racing to the next step.

This comes from the first VRT tourny called "Pace Supercross Series"   back in 99, then VRT_McMnut hosted the 2nd tourny called the VRT/KK series with all special tracks from Kips Creations with the green dirt (lol)

ahh the Memories, I think YBS_Superrat or KTM Primetime one the pace series? I think this was the 7th round, and If I remember right, VRT_McMnut won the last round Pace Las Vegas (not his track though) I am going to try to dig up a story I wrote about the MCM community about 18 months ago that i posted on the RFJ boards about all the people that contributed to MCM in 1 way or another.

WFO you should start that, once you get it rolling i'm sure a lot of people will contribute and make the job a little smaller. It'd be a great thing to check back for updates and watch the story unfold - doesn't all have to be done in one go.

Ahh that screen brings back some memories..

rfj's forums are still around if you need them blue
http://www.rfjzone.com/msgboard/