Hello there,

TL;DR: I can create custom and new maps now. An example screenshot is in the attachment :)

Long story:
As some of you might know, many years ago, some fans programmed a track exporter tool. The exporter can convert 3DS Max 4 scenes into a BL4 Pod track. Thus said, some requirements to get these running in 2015 had been met, which took me some time:

- 3DS Max 4. This super-old version of 3DS Max runs only on Windows 2000 and was almost not available anymore anywhere.
- Thus said, Windows 2000 with 3D acceleration. Luckily, the OpenGL backend of 3DS Max 4 runs absolutely fine in a VMware Player virtual machine I set up.
- The BL4 exporter tool itself. There seem to be two versions of it:
Version 1.3 (translated into English):
Comes with an english tutorial and an example 3DS Max 4 scene file (which is also useful for 1.4).
Version 1.4 (only in French):
Supports environmental sounds. Does not come with a tutorial, but nico found french tutorials updated for that version and [url=http://witnessteam.free.fr/public/texturer/]here.

After opening the example file and replacing missing textures with quickly drawn new ones, I had to make sure the textures are in 24-bit TGA format. Paint.NET can export explicitly into this format, GIMP, IrfanView or PhotoFiltre Studio didn't give me a chance to choose the correct bit depth.

Following the BL4 exporter steps (select floors/sectors, cars, checkpoints and sky/background/lensflare images), it worked just fine! If there's an error, a log is written in the target folder of where you wanted to export.

Then, just go ahead and replace a BL4 in the Pod DATA\BINARY\CIRCUITS directory (I choose Alderoem.bl4 because it's the first in the alphabet in my track list), run Pod and choose the track! Result: See attachment!

Some things, however, are not possible:
- The CPU cannot drive the new tracks, the exporter has the Pompeii pathway hardcoded into it, obviously. This is the same issue as with almost all other fan-made tracks from years ago. Only a few supported new pathways, like Forest/Tron. The tool to create custom pathways has sadly been lost as far as I know, if someone has the resources, please tell us!
- It also does not allow to import existing BL4 tracks. The original 3DS Max 4 scene of fan-made tracks is needed, and there is no way to import original maps, sadly, as no source file is available for those.
- No repair zones can be declared. At least I didn't find the smoothing groups causing the floor to do that.
- The lense flair effect of the sun cannot be turned off (now that's a really minimalistic issue!).
- No tunnel darkening of the car like in Beltane, the technique to do that (planes triggering the car light AFAIK) is just not there.
- No animated 3D models like the flying space ship in Megapol.
- The sound is always played as if you're in a tunnel (slight echo), the technique to turn this on and off is missing in the BL4 tool.
- No magnetic / automatic movement of cars (like the lift in Magnetic).
- The sky doesn't move / clouds don't translate.

The tool and/or Pod also has some bugs which can slightly go on your nerves:
- Don't use Sky/Background/Lensflare filenames with more than one dot (e.g. you must use only one dot for the name/extension separation), otherwise, you corrupt the configuration memory of the tool and have to reselect these every time you export, because corrupted file names are read.
- Pod doesn't like some kind of vertex positions and simply crashes upon loading them. After I made a thousand-vertex big track, I ended up checking groups of them over and over to narrow down the buggy ones. Just to notice there's nothing specially wrong with them. After I recreated the vertices, it worked well for no reason. I can only recommend exporting and testing the track after max. 15 minutes of editing...
- Sometimes, even though the UV coordinates do not exceed 1.0 in 3DS Max, Pod maps them badly and the texture looks messed or is completely the wrong one. In this case, find the bad vertex and set the UV coordinates to 0.001 or 0.999 respectively. If you map UV coordinates outside of 0.0 and 1.0, the tool will report this and not export as Pod doesn't support this, telling you the face number with the erroneous coordinates.

I still need to get back into how to use 3DS Max 4 after I switched to Blender many years ago, but the results are just awesome and I'm feeling positive about making some real tracks!

More to come!

UPDATE1: Read through the tutorial. Extended the original map with reflections, ice / wall / decoration declarations of surfaces (where you can't drive on or fall through) and now going for a small circuit :)

UPDATE2: First track is in the making, simply called "Return", as it resembles a place on the Beltane island... see second image ;)

UPDATE3: Finished the basic layout of the track. Turns out it is reaaaally short. I often mess up the dimensions while modelling. Have a look at the attached screenshot. Still some stuff to fix and optimize.

UPDATE4: The track got some more "finishing" touches (it's just a pilot project tho), and I'll publish it soon. Sadly, 3DS Max overall performance is a bit sucky, it likes to crash randomly, and the technique to model stuff is outdated here and there, making it uselessy harder to create models. Since there are better modelling tools like Blender (the new 3DS is better but I never liked it anyways, beyond the fact it costs a fortune and Blender is free and opensource - we just saw with the 3DS Max BL4 plugin what closed source can lead to, to things that stop working for over a decade), I tried interchanging data with it, but there are always compatibility issues and models end up somewhere else than they were before. I'm trying to get nearer towards developing a Blender BL4 exporter - but, oh well, there's much to do beforehand. Nico nicely documented the Pod binary format and BL4 formats, and I try to implement an encoding / decoding C# crypto-stream for the files first (cuz I start to get an overview of the things best when porting them to C# for whatever reason). After all this boring text, I attached another image of the track in it's current form...

I take my hat off to you man! You've managed to do the impossible. :)

Here are some screenshots of the new track. I've also attached some screenshots with Dark POD. Only the car textures have been edited, and it's kinda... dark :)

Here are some more:

Yeah, it's a pretty simple track tho, and you got an old version with some stuff not fixed XD
Dunno, maybe I continue my work on it. But I'm learning some general 3D modelling first.

Hello,

It's a long time ago i didn't touch POD, but i can give some explanations i think ;-)

First some differences between Fan tracks
- Forest was made by SnakeEyes, who worked for ubisoft. This track was made with the Ubisoft editor, this is why it contains all functionnalities.
- Other tracks were made with the tool you have used. This tool was created after reverse engineering on the BL4 file and so was limited to what we discovered and what we could do in 3DSMax (Ubisoft editor import 3DS file but then allow to add other functionnalities)

Then explainations:
Pompei was used as the source file as it doesn't contains 3D animations, ... so we just need to replace the track as this was mainly the only thinks we were exporting from 3DS Max

- CPU (IA) cars:
/Pod/Circuits/Models/Ghost-MagneticDxf20.zip (see P.S. at the end of the message)
If you open this file, you will see how the IA path is designed. Several paths (BL4 also contains some definition for each path like the 'pilot' level of the ghost, ...). There are a lot of segments, but less than in a real ghost. I suppose the ubisoft editor was importing real ghosts than reduce segment number to export the IA.
We didn't go far in the process because the purpose was to play online or ghost competition, so IA was rarely used. And the whole format was not found.

- 3DS export:
Pod/Circuits/Models/Model-MagneticMax23.zip (see P.S. at the end of the message)
Files exists (If you change the link with other track same you could find other ;-) Free.fr has block directory listing this why you cannot parse directories, but lots of files are still there.
Was not public release to avoid in the past people to create new track just by mixing parts of existing tracks. I don't thing it really important now ;-)

- Repair zone:
I don't remember if we found the format, but was useless (due to internet lag we were always playing without collisions so without damage)

- Lense, anmimated 3D, sound, sky
All format not found or difficult to include in 3DSMax with the track? i don't remember (as we didn't had an external editor but only the tool from Sik to export)

- Tunnel:
I don't know if available in BL4 Exporter. it was a special value in the BL4 format for each texture applied on the polygon (normal, Gouraud shading for tunnel, no texture but a flat color)

- Magnetic movement:
It does'nt exist directly as a feature but it's just a 'cheat'. If you look to the Magnetic track, the zone is a lot of polygons in chain.
I don't remember if
- Placing close polygons is enough (each 'colision' with poligon push the car to the next one)
- BL4 file contains a normal vector for each polygon. modifying this vector you can apply a trampoline effect or turbo if horizontal. I don't remember if the vector was calculated by the BL4 exporter or if it's possible to modify it in 3DSMax than export modifications.

Good luck for your track

Skubidou:~

P.S.: I'm not authorised to post link apparently, so i put only the directory structure, it's on my Skubidou free fr website

The good links for Skubidou website.

http://skubidou.free.fr/Pod/Circuits/Models/Ghost-MagneticDxf20.zip

http://skubidou.free.fr/Pod/Circuits/Models/Model-MagneticMax23.zip

Thank you SkipCool for the direct links. I was really getting confused with how free.fr works... :)

Thank you so very much Skubi! :) You've cleared out A LOT of things that were hidden by the veils of time. :D

Thanks for the many replies here, I'm afraid I didn't get back to this earlier..

there's so much information in Skubidou's post, I'm really thankful you visited and posted here =3c

Especially the link to the MAX models is interesting. If I'd work with Pod recently, I would immediately have a look at it, but right now, life turned my interest to more boring and stupid things again. I just bookmark this =3


If you read this, Skubidou; do you still have the source code for the exporter? I'm highly interested in it =3

May I ask why all this obsession with POD? Why not work for a new game like stuntrally to make as "PODish" as possible?

Because POD on its original engine has an atmosphere like no other game. I like the fluidity of the image (due to the affine texture mapping), the great detail of the textures, the sounds and the physics.

And, after 18 years, POD is still my favourite game. I've played a lot of other games, but there is something... unique, something very magnetic about POD. I guess we're just diehard fans, like the Doom 2 community - we prefer the good old look rather than going with something new. :)

Darkriot gets it =3

Also, I'm developing a game engine fitting my own needs. But: Don't expect anything within 10 years :P