Desc File does more / Additional files

[Boblob801]

This brings me back to MvA But anyway.
It would be very nice if you could have multiple "timing_gates" files. Each would have an A or B after it e.g. "timing_gates_A" That way you could enable multiple activities in a track for example, Supercross, Motocross and Arenacross. As it stands this is partially possible but it requires you make multiple tracks and allow them to share track objects. It would just compress track sizes and generally make most of us happy (I hope). The way I "think" this could be built in would be to use the "desc" file. At the current point in time I believe it is used to change the name of the track. The way I would utilize this would be like so

"#Supercross"
"timing_gates_A"

"#Motocross"
"timing_gates_B"
etc..
A track named "Supercross" would show up in the track list

Another idea I had would be weather effects, I know I know but hear me out. I'm sure many of you have played sports games on console etc. But the idea is moderately simple. After you select the track you will be given the opportunity to select a time of day and weather parameters such as rain or shine. There's two ways to do this. You could set the default sun positions for the time of day and different traction parameters for the default weather BUT you could also have additional lines in the desc that say "sunny=texturelist_1" were it would use texturelist_1 for the traction.
Also some sort of rain billboard in front of the screen that fakes rain, nothing fancy just something basic like in Mva unleashed.

[jlv]

That would be a complete mess. Definitely not doing it.

[Pumaxcs]

Not that I know anything technical or coding like but, I really like the idea and on paper it sounds like one of the better ways to do it and for the game to read such a thing. I think the weather effects are still ahead of its time but I like the timing gates idea. Would you just give a quick summary of how this could work or why this is the wrong way to do it? Is the desc just not a friendly file for doing such a thing?

[Boblob801]

The weather system would be a little stupid but the first idea is good, or so I thought. Same goes for the Rain seq in front of the camera. Worked sweet in Mva

[jlv]

Not that I know anything technical or coding like but, I really like the idea and on paper it sounds like one of the better ways to do it and for the game to read such a thing. I think the weather effects are still ahead of its time but I like the timing gates idea. Would you just give a quick summary of how this could work or why this is the wrong way to do it? Is the desc just not a friendly file for doing such a thing?

The way you'd make multiple tracks in one folder work would be by adding a hideous tree of if statements all over the place. Not just in my code, but in the stats scripts on the other websites too. It would be horribly ugly. Just make a new folder. It's simple and only wastes a couple of MB, which is around 10% for most tracks. If the wasted space were really important I'd make more flexible links instead of shared track folders.

[Pumaxcs]

Ah, I see what your getting at now. Even though it looks and feels simple on the surface for the game to read it and the inner workings would branch out in many directions. Yeah, didn't even think of all the secondary scripts that would have to be included with loading a seperate track much less think about uploading the results. Makes a lot more sense. I guess if you are looking for a clean personal folder they would put both tracks into one folder and make sure the decals and game can read from the sub folder then.