Back, as much as I can :)

[Cas]

People,

   I'm currently in New Zealand. Some time ago, I thought I'd have time to start racing again, but many things happen. I will be staying here for one year. I don't know how much time I will have for Stunts, but I've seen there are so many new things that I would sure want to participate. As I say, maybe I can't be that constant, but you will sure hear of me here this time.
   I have been reading all of your replies, guys, on my last post, which was a long time ago, and I was so happy to see so many of you remembering me!   Of course I have to participate with what I can. Thank you all for your welcome messages. Now I have a few questions about what has been going on:

1 - There's a tool to build your own cars and as far as I see, you can even shape them yourself!  Unfortunately it won't run on my computer, but I can see the cars built with it.  Do you know if the specs for the 3D Shape files are publicly known?
2 - Does this tool also allow for building new track items?

[Duplode]

New Zealand! That's about the furthest place I can imagine, very cool 

1. You can get some file format descriptions, including the 3D file specs, from the Wiki. I guess something could be done so that Stressed would work on your computer, BTW...

2. The best reply to that is "not really". While Stressed allows for 3D shape manipulation, the shapes themselves have nothing to do with the physical behaviour of the object (thus you can style your road tiles as ten-meter brick walls if you wish, but they will still behave as regular roads). The physical shape of track objects is partially specified by data in GAME.RES, as described in this post. To make a long story short, each track element is composed by a number of plane surfaces bound together. In a loop, for instance, each of the small loop segments with different slopes correspond to a set of bytes in GAME.RES . We can, through hex editing, change some properties of these surfaces, such as height above the ground or inclination, but so far we do not know enough to be able to reassemble them into completely new elements - for instance, both the full pipe and the cork l/r use the same set of plane surfaces. The difference between them is merely how the surfaces are attached to each other and where the boundaries of each plane are. So far we haven't identified where the game store its data.

In any case, it is possible too do simple things such as modifying ramp slopes. Unfortunately, the game tends to reuse sets of surfaces a lot; so if you modify ramp inclination, for instance, hill slopes will be affected as well. And, of course, if you're redesigning scenario objects and do not need to worry about the physics you can style them however you wish using Stressed.