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Need for Speed High Stakes Downloads
Thunder Mountain 3 (Virtual Road + AI Fix)
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Description
ello guys, since the new version of T3ED (thanks to Jim Diabolo), it is possible to edit the virtual road data of a track.
The virtual road data basically saves all the important data like height of the track, boundaries, AI lanes, speed information for the AI (how fast can AI go without crash?) and other smaller informations.
Thanks to Zalcus20' great speed files tutorial and to Jonath who basically brought me into NFS4 track modding, i was able to find myself into track modding (LoL). So i started with a track everybody should know here: Bathurst or Thunder Mountain from AccadaccA (and other authors).
What can you fix by editing the virtual road data? I first let Zalcus20 talk on that before i add my experiences:
If the ai lanes (and center line) were to be outside of the Virtual Road boundary, this will bug the AI. For example:
1. AI cops will not be able to deploy spikestrips and roadblocks on
that section of the track.
2. If you crash or reset your car on this section of the track you
will respawn outside the drivable track and get stuck.
3. The bots will behave unpredictably. They might slam into the side
of the road (walls aka non-passable area), drive in that annoying
'congo line' style, crash into each other, and if you are racing with
traffic, it is guaranteed that they will crash right into them...
Every. Single. Time.
After i understood that, i started to realize that the virtual road data also influences "invisible jumps", which you might know from many mod tracks, which is mainly caused by stretching track blocks too much. The bigger a track polygon (lane) gets stretched, the buggier and glitchier gets that track part and so it's more possible that your car will jump out of nowhere in that area.
So actually that's all i gonna say, thank you Zalcus20 for your tutorial and thank you Jim Diabolo for your new T3ED version which makes it possible to edit that very data and thanks to all the authors and helpers who got involved into making Thunder Mountain 3. (original readme included)
pete9516
Comments 14
A beautiful challenging version. Well done!
Thunder Mountain is a fantastic track... but unfortunately it was build in the wrong direction and you have to choose "backward direction" to have the correct experience.
It makes me think if it could be possible to implement a feature in T3ed to turn the block numbers in the opposite direction and to make it possible to switch the driving direction from the start?!? And could a "mirror track" feature be possible aswell? So a new track based on an existing one does not automatically feel like the donor track in first place?
Awesome fix! Thunder Mountain with smart AI is a true challenge now.
I am happy that the speed files tutorial helped you out some.
Quote from pete9516: "And once back in the day i believed that i would never be able to edit tracks because it's such an astonishing thing."
This is the way I felt back in the day, too.
Keep at it. You will surprise yourself if you haven't already.
One of my favorit tracks, now with AI fix, gonna check asap.
Long but nice discription b.t.w.
With the mixer, It says: "based on raceway2" and I click o.k, install.
Sometimes the Mixer 'mixes' up old Trn files with new tracks.
It appears the author did not provide his own Trn file, so it's safe to say Thunder Mountain works without one.
EDIT: Looks like the author did provide a trn file, but it's named "TRN.FRD.original". Rename it to "Trn.frd" and you should be fine. :)
Thanks Zalcus for clearing that up, I see what happened now.
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