Possible Harescramble / Endurocross series?

[Stormz]

I'm thinking about hosting a Harescramble or Endurocross series in the coming months. Can I get some ideas/opinions?

I know there aren't many tracks available, but I'm sure I can build them and have a beta crew help me smooth them out.

[Zane_Mx#88]

I actually heard Joe Sawler is going to plan an arenacross series soon.

[GoPro HD]

oooh! arenacross is my favorite! (:

[Sweendoggy]

I'm pretty sure this thread is about harescrambles and endurocross's....

That sounds sweet stormz, good luck, I'd like to ride in them if you make this happen.

[GoPro HD]

oh yeah , sorry to change the subject just putting my opinion and arenacross. but, if this hare scramble is made... count me in! I would love a desert race.. it would be so much fun.

[GoPro HD]

I would also like to give some ideas on people that could possible make the track... The start should be really open and rutted.. there should be little to *NO* jumps and I think you should put some single track into it.. that stuff is difficult in real life so imagine on this game? that could be a pretty crazy race... My final idea would be running us through a river and using the little colored pieces of plastic that are tied to like bushes and stuff to tell you if the next section is going to be easy or not.

[karlwb]

Stormz i hope you do get stuck in to making some cross country/enduro type tracks,i've thought the same regarding an enduro series,unfortunately i cant host but the biggest stumbling block is producing enough tracks,so far i got 1 finished,another almost finished and a 3rd in early stages,but i haven't touched them in a while.

if you're not a photoshop pro, LD3T (scenery generator) and Gimp are both free programmes that work well,thats what i've used with the ingame editor.

as far as tracks go,mine are around a 4min lap, longer than most MX but they're overall easier to ride

to emphasise the difference to MX,i use very few man-made jumps or berms,mostly natural terrain, irregular faces and flat corners with maybe bank or off camber,hill climbs and a mix of fast and slower sections etc.
for online i think you wanna go mass start,so widish tracks like mx,if you put in single track you need to offer multiples,a lone single track would just cause problems.
i try to keep the track easy visible,not too technical and objects low so it'll run ok for most pc's, i run a marker tape at the edge of the track like you see at enduros and only the thin posts have collision,that works well.

[Stormz]

Great Ideas guys. There will definitely be single track, where I'm from, that's pretty much all you race in a hare scramble, but there'll be many lines to choose from to keep it raceable. The massive MX start seems to be a must, I can't think of any way to do it without that type of start.

One of the things I was thinking, was having multiple lines up a hill. For example, have a difficult line that is short, or have an easy line that takes longer to do.

I will probably have 1, maybe 2, races with a jump or two just to mix it up. I'm going to *attempt* to mix WORCS and GNCC styles together, maybe some National Enduro hill climbs just to up the ante a bit

Anyways, keep the ideas and such coming! I'll have to figure out how to create tracks with GIMP as i've only played with the track editor ingame and you can't really make much with it in terms of hills.

[karlwb]

yeh its hard to make good terrain with game editor alone,for easier results you wanna use L3DT to make your terrain, it generates hills, valleys etc.(DJ posted a tutorial for it somewhere on this forum),it takes a few tryouts to get one you'll like,it's a bit hit and miss,but once you get the hang of it you can generate them very quickly and try them out in game,then you can mess around with different height scaling too,just come out the game and change the last figure in the terrain HF file (height),then go back in and see what the changes are like,its a bit painful but you can get good results. when you got one you're happy with then you can make more detail adjustments with the game editor which its really good for. i make the map all grass with tile edit,then i ride round looking for good sections,these i'll mark with dirt with tile edit,when you got enough parts you can join them up to form a whole track.when you got your basic track layout you can improve local detail with editor,height, bumps etc. then mess around with decals to get the surface appearance you want,try looking at some of the decals that have been made public, you can always put them in GIMP if you want to alter shade or colour or make a combination.then the major thing to sort out is the tile info,this renders the "feel" or type of surface,ie.loam,sand, mud,gravel, rock,wet,dry etc it takes some experimenting with,you need a tile (ppm file} for each surface you wanna model ie.grass mud,loam,sand etc.i think the basic map has 3 or 4 and you can make more in GIMP if needed.my interpretation is you got 3 parameters to work with to produce your desired surface effect,resistance~how much the surface slows you down going over it,friction~the amount of bite available to your tyres,and slip~ lateral or sideways movement for given applied pressure and these can be defined at 4 or 5 different rates according to speed /load.
hope that helps!

[Stormz]

Helps a lot.

This is definitely a team effort I noticed. I can't figure out the who 'timing gate' thing, even after reading the tutorial on it. Is there anyone who can help me with that and the tile editing for different surface types?

[karlwb]

timing gates....basically they're placed at each corner so riders must complete whole track. when you've placed your gates,by click and drag,make a note of the number order for a start lap,and then for a normal lap (ie.without start),you'll need to write both these sets of numbers in order at the bottom of the timing gate file.the finishing gate is determined by putting 1000 before the corresponding gate number.so if you're finish gate is gate 20,put 100020.

to create different surfaces you gotta have a tile info file in your track folder to start with. if you go in editor and click tilemap edit you'll see there are a few different tiles ie. grass,dirt etc.
the tile info file sets the characteristics of friction,rolling resistance,slip for each of those different surfaces you have in tile map edit. older versions of the blank track do not have the tile info file,you need a newer version which also has other new files as well.

in the tile info file you would see something like this;

1 2
a friction 0.125 2.0
b friction 0.25 4.0
c friction 1.0 6.0

1 2 3
a roll_resist 5.0 75.0 10.0
b roll_resist 5.0 50.0 50.0

texture @newtiletest/sand.ppm


friction ~ figures in column 1 = grip,for example a is light loading,b is mid and c is max
the default max grip is 1.0, lower it for less max grip,raise it for more max grip
~ figures in column 2 = slip, a lower figure makes the surface less slippery and higher more slippery

roll resist ~ column 3 is speed over surface
" 1 is rolling resistance at low load
" 2 " " " at high load

beware because mx simulator is constantly developing,old and new stuff co-exist, it can be a nightmare to find what you need to start with best suggestion is to find a relatively new made track that hasn't been saffed,so you can see all the files in the track folder and see what you need and what does what.
for example in editor you can see how the timing gates are placed and then come out and see how they're written in the timing gate file.or you can take out the decal file so you can see how the tilemap looks or with the decals back in you can move them around to see how the surface appearance is built up etc.

[devotid]

i would love to help out with this.....ive been wanting an enduro harescramble style race for a while.
ive made tracks for rfactor and a couple rc car simulators.....

im good at photoshop, illustrator, blender, 3ds, and bobs track builder plugin, the old atv vs mx track creator(great for outputting height maps)

if there is anything i can help with let me know.

Kevin

[Stormz]

Timing gates is definitely something I could use the help with still! I just can't seem to figure out how to get them to work

I loved the MvA editor for that, it was simple to create the layout on there (may be simple on here too, just can't figure it out)

Also, textures....not so great yet. I'm using the editor's until i can get a good track design. The one i have now is rideable, but it's pretty difficult in some areas.

[kawijeremy]

hey, when you get those tracks done please PM me the download link for them, these forums get realy crazy and i forget about things

[devotid]

i was doing some reading since i just purchased Google Sketchup Pro last week....and they showed how some game designers were quickly mocking up huge -low poly "cities" and then "detailing" them in blender or 3ds etc later....

i have never used the track editor from Mxsimulator.......is there one?...i bought the game, should i have access to it?

give me a day or so and ill see what i can come up with for a "long" enduro layout.......and ill look at he gate placement thing.....in real race G2 there is a track editor that is a nightmare to set the gates...so if i could get that this may be a little easier for me.......maybe...... lol

I grew up riding in the Northern Michigan Jackpine enduros back in the 90's........kevin hines, terry cunningham, steve hess......old days.....so ill make it like that

Ill shall return...hopefully with some kick ass "trail riding" style track.