Is it possible to manipulate buildings, structures, objects in Stunts/4D Sports?

[Striker]

I would like to draw the words "a1k.org Stunts Challenge" on the start finish line banner.
Would this be possible?
Is there a editor available?

Thanks

[alanrotoi]

"a1k.org Stunts Challenge"

Is it a stunts competition?

[alanrotoi]

Btw you can't add textures in this game as far as I know

[Striker]

It should become a mini competiton on a1k.org - the Amiga Forum.
Therefore I would love edit the start finish banner.
But unfortunately it is'nt possible you say. 

[Daniel3D]

You can add polygon based text.
It's a pain to make in stressed, but can be done.
Unfortunately it's part of one of the game files and therefore difficult to mod effectively. We will need a tool that can swap individual chunks for that.
But it is possible. Just a matter of effort.

[Overdrijf]

Cool, you're working on a Stunts challenge! Nice.

The good news is that the visual 3D models are separate from the mechanical models. Those mechanical models are what's really hard to change. The only one that even comes close to that kind of modding is Cas.

For the dinosaur video I repeated the visual model of a grass tile over the models for icy road, straights and small corners, that worked fine. I figure a visually modified finish line should be possible by modifying the same files, which can be done with the program Stressed.

The big downside is: these visuals are modified in a big client side file. So if you want people to see it you'd basically have to tell people "you have to drive with this mod installed", and then they'll see that same finish line on all tracks they drive.

The other downside, as mentioned, is that the whole thing needs to be made out of polygons. I don't know what the limit in the numbers of polygons and vertices is for these things, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a lower limit than for car shapes. (Or if these was an overall file size limit for the environmental model files.) Still, seeing the details on something like a large corner, the finish line can probably be prettied up a bit and still work.

I can't give much more details currently, like say sharing the modified environment file from the dino project. My pc is currently out of order and I can only hope it recovers with Stunts intact. If not the "Vol" map will be the last of my old stuff* I shared. (It will probably work out, no panic just yet.)

(*Edit: of my old-ish stuff anyway. My treasure trove with dozens of childhood maps was already lost long ago.)

[Daniel3D]

You can add polygon based text.
It's a pain to make in stressed, but can be done.
Unfortunately it's part of one of the game files and therefore difficult to mod effectively. We will need a tool that can swap individual chunks for that.
But it is possible. Just a matter of effort.

However I don't know if stressed is compatible with Amiga version files..

[Overdrijf]

However I don't know if stressed is compatible with Amiga version files..

Right, probably not.

[Cas]

Uhm... I guess that Amiga Stunts files may have format differences with those of DOS Stunts, but there must also be some degree of coincidence. It'd be crazy if all of the file formats had changed. So maybe 3D shapes still use the same format. If so, the GAMEx.P3S files, if I'm not mistaken, contain the 3D shapes of track elements and you can modify the start/finish line banner to give it extra details as long as it will behave exactly the same as the original. Stressed should be able to do that

[Striker]

Thank you guys for your professional info whats possible and whats not and how to go for it.
Yes the Amiga has lower colors than the DOS VGA version and I think the resolution is slightly lower too. The game was made to run on an Amiga 500 with a Motorola MC68000 based CPU clocked @ 7.09379 MHz on PAL systems but we will do it on DOSBox on nowadays PCs too.
But wait...  ..there is a hidden dinosaur in the Stunts game files? Did I got that right? 

[Daniel3D]

The basic files are the same format as the original game. But the beginning of the file States it's size and that value is incorrect. Stressed can, but will not load the file for that reason.

[Daniel3D]

But wait...  ..there is a hidden dinosaur in the Stunts game files? Thit I got that right? 

It's a modded version.
The dinosaur topic is here
The video is here..

[Overdrijf]

It looks like I never posted the actual dinosaur (carnotaurus, and amazingly I think that was not an intentional pun, just my favorite class at the time from that other game) model here. I have to be a bit careful with my computer over the next week, but I'll try to remember adding it to the linked topic when I start the thing up for the final Zakstunts lap of the year, if people want to mess around with it. I'll also add the modified track1 file (I probably still have that, I rarely throw stuff away) as it may be useful in helping you figure out how to change the starting line.

(I will have a replacement drive around Christmas, so I'll be ready for the track building vacation and the new season. I also seem to have not lost too much, the "vol" track is not the last bit of old stuff I'll ever share.)

[Overdrijf]

I added the dinosaur to the topic about the dinosaur. I couldn't immediately find the right game1 file, so I'll look for that later. The good news is when I opened game1 I did see the model "fini" which is the finish line. If nobody beats me to it I might try changing it over Christmas.

[Overdrijf]

Allright, I'm back on the road.

In the attached GAME1.3sh I made edits to the finish line, giving it a fancy mesh texture and putting a crudely drawn "A" on it. If you post this into your Stunts folder and rename the existing "GAME1.P3S" something like "GAME1 original.P3S" you can see the changes to the finish line. I used the GAME1 from Stunts 1.1, I suspect it also works if you try this file on the other PC versions, probably not on the Amiga version, I think.

Coincidentally, the file I clicked to start this quick mod just happened to also be the GAME1 file used for the dinosaur project, so you will also notice that regular straight and and corner ice road pieces are invisible.

This is the kind of modding you're going to have to do for this project. It'll be a bit of a hassle to fit all of "a1k.org Stunts Challenge" on there, but you have a space of 22 by 264 pixel-ish units to work with, so at least in theory you can fit quite a lot on it, even though in practice it'll be more readable if you keep the details a little bigger.

The modding program for this job, Stressed, can be found on the Southern Cross Stunts Trophy site, along with a bunch of other tools and custom cars.

I have no experience with trying this stuff on the Amiga version, please let us know how it went.

(Edit: The forum is being a little trippy. It looks like I made a double post, but when I removed one of them the other was gone too, so I reposted and hope it will work this time.)