howdy and welcome!
this is a good first introduction:
http://www.longbowgames.com/treadmarks/mods/
i don't mod, i'm just a pack rat. as such, i've been collecting "stuff" related to treadmarks for close to 10 years now...
i'm sure other people will chime in, but here are a couple of old posts ... from some where ... to get you started:
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Could you give me some tips on making a tank?
Except for the Mite the tank stats were kept the same to help keep racing fair. Of course this doesn't apply much now that TM is becoming more focussed on deathmatch.
Mass determines how much the environment effects the tank...splash push....and is the key difference between liquid and steel tanks.
Top speed is not a fixed limit....It can be exceeded going down hill.
Add acceleration if your tank is too slow on hills or you are setting gravity higher... to try for that WWII tank combat effect.
Armor is simply armor/hit points but with a damage gradient from front to rear .
Now that's pretty sketchy, so I'll comment on what creates the subtle differences that you observe.
All other stats being the same, it's the tank shape that counts.
On the bottom of each tank is a series of contact points. A contact points has to be touching the ground to drive the tank forward or turn....etc.
As for damage, the front can take the most damage and rear the least. There is a gradient around the tank. Given there more nebulous shape, a liquid tank might be taking a side hit when it appears to be taking a frontal hit.
When a tank takes splash/push it is temporarily disabled , having lost most of its contact with the ground. And as you experienced players know, the key to the dirtball attack is bouncing the opponent in the air That's why the dirtball was designed to just be reloading as the opponent is landing and regaining control...
Control is the key As soon as contact points touch down you can start regaining control, and that's where shape plays a major part.
The other major influence which is always changing and has a huge effect on tank performance is the terrain itself. As the terrain shape and roughness effects the ability of those contact points to be on the ground < to accelerate and turn the tank>, (and as no game has changeable terrain like Tread Marks) ....the terain creates a constantly changing set of parameters for the player to factor into decisions.
Jim
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How do I extract the heightmap from a .ved file?
Using Paint Shop Pro:
Open the .ved file as follows:
RAW format
Header offset: 40 bytes
Size: Probably 1024x1024 - most LDA maps are this size
Color Chanels: Single (Greyscale)
File Structure shouldn't matter since its greyscale, but I know Interweaved RGB order works.
If for some reason the file seems off hoizontally, open with no Header Offset and count the number of pixels not part of the picture at the top first row.
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How do I make a skymap for Treadmarks?
This can be acomplished using Terragen.
WHEN YOU ARE NOW READY TO RENDER Go to SETTINGS in the RENDERING CONTROL window. The RENDER SETTINGS window appears.
Don't touch gamma unless you specifically want to, but when you are ready to do the final render slide the ATMOSPHERE and CLOUD SHADING ACCURACY sliders to HIGH. Render times will now drastically increase even in the little preview window.
Click CLOSE. MAKE SURE DETAIL (just under the preview window) is all the way to the right (i.e. MAX).
Now look at the CAMERA settings. First place the camera and target where you want them by LEFT clicking in the little topdown picture of your terrain for CAMERA and RIGHT clicking for TARGET. The target will be changed manually though in a moment for skyboxes. Basically you want the camera near the middle so left click in the middle of the little terrain window.
Now set the ZOOM / MAGNIFICATION in CAMERA SETTINGS to 1. It defaults to 1.414 which will cause the images not to line up correctly.
GO TO WORLD FILE TO SAVE WORLD
Now, for the skybox,
Rencer each part of the skybox using these camera settings: Head, Pitch, Bank
0, 0, 0 save as: filename__front
90, 0, 0 save as: filename__right
180, 0, 0 save as: filename__back
270, 0, 0 save as: filename__left
0, 90, 0 save as: filename__up
All shots should be 512x512 typically and saved as .bmp files.
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these are old posts, so there are probably newer programs out there that do the same thing.
if nothing else, i'll comb through my old files and see what others have had to say in the past.
toodles,
harmless
:)
