Tuning Files
After you've finished creating the geometry, the next step is to tune your custom vehicle. The
shop\tune directory contains the base tuning files necessary to define a unique vehicle within the
game. The default parameters are specified in the template directory ( c:\vck\template ).
- Each new custom vehicle is defined with an info file in the shop\tune directory. The Red Rocket's
info file is vpredcar_s.info. This ASCII file specifies the basename for the car (vpredcar_s),
and other basic characteristics, including horsepower, top speed, durability, and mass, that
help define the vehicle. If you change any of these values, keep in mind that certain tuning
values and combinations of tuning values may cause your custom vehicle (or the game) to
behave erratically or stop responding (for example, assigning a negative mass value will
cause problems).
- The (*.info) file specifies settings found in the User Interface (UI) for the slider controls displaying
a car's relative Mass, Horsepower, Damage, etc. The actual values reside in the vehicles
mmcarsim file. The values found in this file have no bearing on the car's actual performance --
only the display -- although ideally both files should be the same.
Note that the basename must prefix all other related tuning files in order for the game to read them
correctly. Additionally, each choice after Colors must have a unique set of textures associated with
them.
All of the tuning files are ASCII text, so feel free to edit them to adjust the performance characteristics
of the Red Rocket (or other cars you develop). For other custom cars, copy the Red Rocket's default
tune files and rename them using the new car prefix.
Tuning Notes
- The ship.bat program ( c:\vck\shop\ship.bat ) performs several necessary steps prior to creating
an archive. It bootstraps the tuning files based on the template files. It also deletes the global
texture worksheet ( mtl\global.tsh ). (You should avoid creating an archive with a global
texture sheet because it will almost always cause a crash.)
- After ship.bat is executed once, a shiplist and archive can be found in the ( c:\vck\build )
directory. You can create subsequent archives (without re-creating the tuning files or affecting
other models) by running the Make Archive program ( c:\vck\angel\mkar.exe ).
- You can add audio samples to the cars by placing new audio sample files in shop\aud\aud22.
The samples should be 22kHZ.
- You can also specify existing audio files from other archives. In the case of the Red Rocket,
audio sounds from the Panoz GTR-1 (vppanozgt) are used to provide sound. An important
side affect of this ability is unique file names for assets since asset names are global across
different archive files.
- Files that end with the extension *.*CAMCS define the camera positions.
- The .mmDashView defines how the dashboard "sews up" with the cockpit view.