Tutorial: Scene Modding and Object Moving

[Brickulator]

LEGO Racers scene modding tutorial

 

In this guide I will explain how to edit the various scenes in the game, such as tracks and cutscenes. This will include placing and moving 3D objects and animated models.

 

There are a couple of tools you’ll need so if you don’t already have them, download them here:

LEGO.JAM file extractor

Binary file editor

 

You may also find this tool useful to help with positioning objects in tracks:

In-game Coordinate viewer

 

The first thing you’ll need to do, if you haven’t done so already, is extract the LEGO.JAM file. You can find instructions on how to do this in the LEGO.JAM file extractor thread I linked above. I’d recommend copying LEGO.JAM to another folder first and working on it there, since your computer might shout at you if you try to work within Program Files.

 

Once you’ve extracted the JAM file, you’ll have a folder called LEGO, and inside it, 2 folders: GAMEDATA and MENUDATA. In terms of scenes, GAMEDATA contains the tracks and MENUDATA contains the cutscenes.

 

The track folders are named as below:

 

Imperial Grand Prix - RACEC0R1

Dark Forest Dash - RACEC1R0

Magma Moon Marathon - RACEC0R3

Desert Adventure Dragway - RACEC0R2

Tribal Island Trail - RACEC1R1

Royal Knight’s Raceway - RACEC0R1

Ice Planet Pathway - RACEC1R3

Amazon Adventure Alley - RACEC1R2

Knightmare-athon - RACEC2R0

Pirate Skull Pass - RACEC2R1

Adventure Temple Trail - RACEC2R2

Alien Rally Asteroid - RACEC2R3

Rocket Racer Run - RACEC3R0

Test drive track - TEST

 

And the cutscene folders are these:

 

Captain Redbeard intro - CIRCUIT1

King Kahuka intro - CIRCUIT2

Basil the Batlord intro - CIRCUIT3

Johnny Thunder intro - CIRCUIT4

Baron von Barron intro - CIRCUIT5

Gypsy Moth intro - CIRCUIT6

Rocket Racer intro -CIRCUIT7

1st place in circuit race - C_AWARD1

2nd place in circuit race - C_AWARD2

3rd place in circuit race - C_AWARD3

4th, 5th, or 6th place in circuit race - C_AWARD4

Win a car set - WINCAR

Beat Rocket Racer - WINRRCAR

Beat Veronica Voltage - WINVVCAR

 

These are the main scene folders. The splash screen is also a cutscene (LEGAL) and there are cutscene versions of the standard FMVs in the PC demo and N64 version of the game (LEGOINTR, HVSINTRO, MAININTR).

There are also a couple of other scenes from the character and car builders and the track selection screen (CB_SET, GARAGE, SINGRACE) if you want to do anything with those (every model of a track in the race selection screen, SINGRACE, is actually a cutscene as well).

 

Now, there are a few important binary files contained within each of these folders, and you’ll need to edit these in order to make the modifications you want to. You can open and edit these files with origamiguy’s binary file editor that I linked to at the start. The types of binary files you’ll probably be working with are:

 

3D scenes (.WDB)

Texture lists (.TDB)

Material lists (.MDB)

3D models (.GDB)

Skeleton structures (.SDB)

Skeletal animations (.ADB)

Material animations (.MAB)

Cutscene files (.CDB)

Cutscene event files (.CEB)

 

You won’t need to edit all of these, and if you’re only modding tracks you won’t need the CDB or CEB files (although it may be possible to script events during the race by using cutscenes, but I haven’t tried anything like that yet).

 

I’ll try to keep this simple. Once you start playing with these files you might realise that there’s a lot of cool stuff you could do so I’m not going to try to cover it all.

 

1. Moving objects

 

This is probably one of the easiest ways to modify a track. I’ll go through an example of how to do this, and the same method should work for any object on any track. For every section of this guide, I’ll be working with Imperial Grand Prix.

 

To demonstrate how to move an object, I’ll start with something small and simple - some boxes.

 

 

There’s a few crates in the corner here. I’m going to try to move them to the right a bit. To do this, I need to open the .WDB file for Imperial Grand Prix. This is the “scene” file and it determines which objects are in the scene, and where they are placed. You may find that there is more than 1 WDB file, and in fact Imperial Grand Prix has 5. The one you want should be the biggest WDB file. You can see here that TEST.WDB is the biggest file, and this is the one I’ll be editing.

 

 

Now you need to open the WDB file with origamiguy’s binary file editor. When you do, you’ll see something that looks like this:

 

 

In the “GDB files” list, you should be able to find the model you want. I can see “boxes” in there, so I assume that’s the one I want. Underneath these file lists are “static models” and “animated models”. You need to find your model in there so either look for it yourself or press CTRL+F and search for it with the name listed under GDB files. You can see the listing for the “boxes” model in the middle here:

 

 

The only part I’m interested in at the moment is the position of the boxes. This is determined by this part of the code:

 

k_31    // Position

(float)-316.3805

(float)-591.2501

(float)-66.41721

 

Those 3 numbers are the x, y and z coordinates of the model. To demonstrate this, I’ll borrow a couple of images from RobExplorien’s start and power-up position tutorial.

 

 

All you need to do to change the position of an object is change these coordinates. I won’t be worrying about the z position because I only want to move the boxes along a flat surface. But how do I know how much I need to change the x and y values? Well, there’s a couple of ways to do it. The first is good old trial and error (and this is what you’ll need to do if you’re moving an object not on a drivable surface). I could just change the values a bit, then launch the game and see how it looks, then change them again until I’m happy.  But a much easier way to do it is to use grappigegovert’s coordinate viewer that I linked at the start.

I’m going to use the coordinate viewer. You need LEGO Racers to be running for it to display anything, so you can either run the game in windowed mode or ALT+TAB to switch to the viewer while you’re playing.

 

 

I’ve driven a little bit further and I’m going to try to move the boxes to where I’m parked right now. You can still see the boxes in their little corner there. I’ve switched to the coordinate viewer:

 

 

The location coordinates now show the x, y and z values for the position of my car. I’m going to copy the x and y coordinates straight across to the WDB file.

 

 

Hopefully, this will move the boxes to the current position of my car. Let’s see if it worked. I’ll save and overwrite the WDB file, close the game and rebuild my JAM. Then I’ll launch the game again and see where the boxes are now...

 

 

Well, the boxes are no longer in their original position. This looks promising (note - the collision mesh is unchanged, if you drive into that corner you’ll bump into invisible crates, you can edit the collision files if you want to try to change things like that but I won’t be covering it here).

 

 

 

There they are! Exactly where I wanted them to go (note - because the collision files haven’t been changed, you can drive straight through the model).

That’s pretty much all there is to it when it comes to changing the location of objects. You can change the z coordinate to move things vertically in the same way, and you can change the rotation values too. For example, this is the result of increasing the z coordinate and making up some random rotation values:

 

 

Just try messing around with these values and see what you can do.

 

2. Copying objects

 

Now that we’ve been able to move objects around the track, we can try duplicating them. I’ll go back to my Imperial Grand Prix boxes, still floating in the air from the first part of the tutorial. Because you can never have too many floating boxes, right? This, again, requires editing the main WDB file. Open it up and find the model you want to copy. In my case, that’s “boxes” under “static models” again. In order to copy the model, I need to copy the “boxes” entry and paste it as a new model listing. I’ll just paste it underneath the original.

 

 

But now we have 2 models called “boxes” and the game won’t like that at all. So I’ll save it some confusion by calling the copy “boxes2”. You can call the model whatever you want.

 

 

Now, you may think it’s just a case of repositioning this copy, but there’s one thing you need to remember to do. Scroll back up to the start of the “static models” or “animated models” list, depending on the type of model you’re using. You’ll see a code that looks something like this:

 

k_2E    // Static models

[19]

 

The number in square brackets tells the game how many models of that type are in the scene. By default, Imperial Grand Prix has 19 static models. Because I’ve just added a new one, I need to change this number to 20, like this:

 

k_2E    // Static models

[20]

 

These square bracketed numbers are very important and appear in all the binary files. If I left my static model number as 19, the game would insert the first 19 models in the list and ignore the last one. And if you set the number too high, the game will crash and you’ll get a syntax error message. It’s such an easy thing to forget, but it’s vital that this number is correct to ensure everything works properly.

 

(Note - on the subject of error messages, pay attention to them. More often than not, when you crash the game by messing with these files, you’ll get an error message that should help you understand exactly what went wrong, or at least the file that caused the problem)

 

Now that I’ve copied the model and updated this number, the level should load both copies of the boxes model. But they have the exact same coordinates so they’ll just be on top of each other and you won’t be able to tell there’s more than 1. So I’ll open up the coordinate viewer again and use the process I described in part 1 of the tutorial to move the second boxes model.

 

 

Et voilà!

 

3. Copying objects from other tracks

 

I’m quite proud of the floaty box environment that I’ve created so far. But wouldn’t it look much cooler with the addition of...a UFO? Of course it would! So let’s get to work.

 

Now, this is where things start to get a little more complicated. So far the only file we’ve needed to edit is the main WDB file for the track we’re using. Unfortunately, the number of files we need to mess with to insert an object from another track is...well, more than one.

 

Once you’ve decided on an object to copy into a track, you’ll need the files that make up that object. So open the folder for the track that this object was originally in (the folder names are listed in the first post) and start by finding the GDB file of the object. If you’re not sure what it is, you could use the process from part 1 to move objects around and work out which is which.

 

The object I want to use is the big UFO from Alien Rally Asteroid that hovers in place just before the finish line. The ARA folder is RACEC2R3 so I’m going to open that and sort the files by type to find the GDB files.

 

 

The one I want is UFOHOVER.GDB. Once you know which GDB file you need, open it with the binary file editor. You’ll see a list of “materials” at the top. These materials correspond to textures and solid colours that the model uses. Either leave this window open or make a note of the materials listed here. The list for my UFO looks like this:

 

k_27    // Materials

[7]

{

"araufo1"

"araufo2"

"araufo3"

"araufo4"

"araufolg"

"arawndow"

"plainmat"

}

 

Now that you know what materials you need, you’ll need to open the track’s main MDB file (the track you’re copying the object from). This will be called COMBINED.MDB, and it lists all the materials used in the scene. Look through the file (or use CTRL+F) for the materials listed in the GDB file and copy them into a word document or something (you can copy them straight into the other track’s MDB but it might be easier to do it this way first). You should end up with a list of materials like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

k_27    // Material

"araufo1"

{

k_29    // Diffuse Color

127

127

127

255

k_28    // Ambient Color

127

127

127

255

k_2C    // Texture Name

"araufo1"

k_2D

k_2B

}

k_27    // Material

"araufo2"

{

k_29    // Diffuse Color

51

141

45

255

k_28    // Ambient Color

51

141

45

255

k_2C    // Texture Name

"araufo2"

k_2D

k_2B

}

k_27    // Material

"araufo3"

{

k_29    // Diffuse Color

127

127

127

255

k_28    // Ambient Color

127

127

127

255

k_2C    // Texture Name

"araufo3"

k_2D

k_2B

}

k_27    // Material

"araufo4"

{

k_29    // Diffuse Color

127

127

127

255

k_28    // Ambient Color

127

127

127

255

k_2C    // Texture Name

"araufo4"

k_2D

k_2B

}

k_27    // Material

"araufolg"

{

k_29    // Diffuse Color

127

127

127

255

k_28    // Ambient Color

127

127

127

255

k_2C    // Texture Name

"araufolg"

k_2D

k_2B

}

k_27    // Material

"arawndow"

{

k_29    // Diffuse Color

27

171

166

255

k_28    // Ambient Color

27

171

166

255

k_2C    // Texture Name

"arawndow"

k_2D

k_2B

}

k_27    // Material

"plainmat"

{

k_29    // Diffuse Color

127

127

127

255

k_28    // Ambient Color

127

127

127

255

}

 

 

All of these apart from “plainmat” reference a texture. Plainmat appears to be a solid colour material that appears in other tracks but is not always the same colour in every track. Find the plainmat material in the COMBINED.MDB file for the track you want to copy the object into and see what values it has. In my case, Alien Rally Asteroid has the same plainmat colour as Imperial Grand Prix, so I don’t need to copy it into IPG.

 

If your destination track has a different plainmat colour to your source track, try the following:

1. Copy the source plainmat material code into COMBINED.MDB for the destination track. Do not overwrite the existing plainmat.

2. Rename the plainmat you just copied to “plainmat2”

3. Copy the GDB file you’re using into the desination track’s folder and edit it so that its material list includes “plainmat2” instead of “plainmat”

 

If you do have to do that, make sure you update the square bracket number in the MDB accordingly, and don’t overwrite your edited GDB file with the original when I tell you to copy the model files later.

 

Now you’ll need a list of the textures that match the materials you just found. Each material lists a “texture name” and these are the things you’ll be looking for. The texture name and material name will not always be the same, so be careful. Open the COMBINED.TDB file in the source track. This lists all the textures used by the materials in the scene. You need to find all the texture files that correspond to your object’s materials, so go through the file the same way you went through the MDB file, and copy the texture codes. Here are the ones I need:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

k_27    // Texture

"araufo1"

{

k_2A    // Bitmap (remove this to denote a TGA texture)

k_28

}

k_27    // Texture

"araufo2"

{

k_2A    // Bitmap (remove this to denote a TGA texture)

k_28

}

k_27    // Texture

"araufo3"

{

k_2A    // Bitmap (remove this to denote a TGA texture)

k_28

}

k_27    // Texture

"araufo4"

{

k_2A    // Bitmap (remove this to denote a TGA texture)

k_28

}

k_27    // Texture

"araufolg"

{

k_2A    // Bitmap (remove this to denote a TGA texture)

k_28

}

k_27    // Texture

"arawndow"

{

k_2A    // Bitmap (remove this to denote a TGA texture)

k_28

}

 

 

You should have a list of material codes, and a list of texture codes. You now need to copy the material codes into the COMBINED.MDB file of the destination track, and copy the texture codes into the COMBINED.TDB file of the destination track. Remember, if the plainmats are the same you don’t need to copy that one, and if they’re different and you’ve already added a plainmat2 material, don’t copy it again. Make sure you know how many materials you’ve added, and how many textures you’ve added, because you need to update the numbers in square brackets at the top of each file. I’m copying 6 materials and 6 textures, so I need to add 6 to both numbers. Save both files when you’re done.

 

Now the game will know which textures to look for when loading the model. But it doesn’t know how to load the model itself yet, so we need to start editing the main WDB file (for the destination track).

 

 

Near the start of the file, you’ll see 3 lists - GDB files, SDB files, and ADB files. The GDB files are the 3D models. If you’re copying a static model (or an animated model that you don’t want to be animated), you only need to worry about the GDB. For an animated model, you’ll need all 3. I already opened my GDB file earlier to find the materials, so I know the one I want is called UFOHOVER.GDB. This means I need to add “ufohover” to the list of GDB files, like so:

 

 

(make sure you add it to the bottom of the list or it will mess everything up) I also need to add 1 to the bracket number, so it’s now [21]. If you’re using an animated model, add the same filename to the SDB and ADB lists as well (and update the bracket number!).

 

Once you’ve added the files to these lists, you need to add your model to either the “static model” or “animated model” section (and update the bracket number for that section!!!). You can type the code out yourself but it’s easier to copy it from the source track’s WDB file. This is similar to the “copying objects” part of the tutorial.

 

This is what my model code looks like:

 

k_2F    // Animated model

"ufohover"

{

k_33    // GDB/ADB/SDB reference

6

2

2

(float)800

k_31    // Position

(float)-637.4066

(float)-124.6511

(float)219.7383

k_32    // Rotation

(float)1

(float)0

(float)0

(float)0

(float)0

(float)1

k_35

0

}

 

If you’re using a static model there will be a couple of parts missing - the ADB and SDB references, and the k_35 part which tells the object to animate (if you’re copying an animated model from a cutscene, it won’t have the k_35 code, so you’ll need to add this part yourself).

 

The 3 numbers under the “GDB/ADB/SDB reference” heading determine which files the model uses. These will probably be wrong, so you’ll need to change them. They refer to the GDB, ADB and SDB lists at the start of the file. Each number is that file’s position in the list. But it is very important to note that in these lists (and other lists like these in these binary files), the first item in the list is number 0, the second is 1, the third is 2, etc. So if you wanted to use the 10th file in the list, that would be number 11.

 

Work out which numbers you need by counting (starting from 0) the position of the files you’re using in each list. The ADB and SDB numbers should be the same. You should have added the filenames to the bottom of the lists, so the ones you want will be the number of files in the list - 1. If you added more than one model, you’ll need to work it out yourself. There are 21 files in my GDB list, and ufohover is at the bottom, so that’s number 20. Here is my model code with corrected file references:

 

k_2F    // Animated model

"ufohover"

{

k_33    // GDB/ADB/SDB reference

20

8

8

(float)800

k_31    // Position

(float)-637.4066

(float)-124.6511

(float)219.7383

k_32    // Rotation

(float)1

(float)0

(float)0

(float)0

(float)0

(float)1

k_35

0

}

 

Apart from moving the object around, that should be all you need to do with the WDB. All you need to do now to get the object into the scene is to copy its files from the original track. These will be the GDB file, ADB and SDB files if it’s an animated model, and the textures. If you can’t remember the filenames, have a look through the WDB and TDB files again to remind yourself which ones you added. These are the files I’m copying:

 

 

Copy these into the folder of the destination track. Everything you need should now be in place, and the object should be loaded into the track. I won’t go over how to reposition it again.

 

 

If everything worked, your model should now be in the track you want it to be. If something went wrong, like I said earlier - pay attention to the error messages. Check you’ve copied all the textures and check all the square brackets - it’s probably something small.

 

You should be able to insert and move different models in tracks by using the information I’ve given so far, but there are a couple of things to note. Models will often not be textured all the way around, because they are usually only viewed from a certain angle. The bottom or back of objects may be invisible so you should keep this in mind when inserting them into tracks. Another thing is getting minifigs into tracks. They can be awkward to work with and position, much more than other objects. Some seem to be easier to use than others. I easily managed to get a dancing King Kahuka into a track, but the best I could do with Johnny Thunder was having him fly around in the sky. You might need to experiment a bit.

 

4. Cutscenes

 

Now that I’ve been through how to modify scenes, let’s look at a special type of scene - the cutscene. There are several cutscenes in the game and I listed the folders for them in the first post. They contain WDB files just like the tracks, but they also have CDB and CEB files. CDB files include things like the models and cameras, CEB files contain transitions, sound effects and subtitle events. As this is a “scene modding” tutorial, I’ll be focusing on the CDB files.

 

I’m going to copying a model from one cutscene and inserting it into another. Specifically, I’m going to copy King Kahuka from his circuit cutscene to Captain Redbeard’s circuit cutscene. It should work for any object, just like with the track models.

 

Firstly, you’re going to need to copy the model’s files and edit the WDB, MDB and TDB files the same way as in the last part of the tutorial. As far as I can tell, when you’re working with a cutscene, the model location coordinates in WDB are completely ignored, so don’t bother trying to change them. They are controlled in the CDB file instead. The Kahuka model I want is located in CIRCUIT2, so I’ve copied his model files and textures into CIRCUIT1 and edited the binary files accordingly. The only issue I found was that CIRCUIT1 already had materials called “torso” and “legs”, so I renamed Kahuka’s materials to “torso2” and “legs2” in the MDB and GDB.

 

If you’re copying a character model and you want the face to be animated the same way as it was in its original cutscene, you’ll need to edit the MAB file. This also applies to other animated textures, but so far I’ve only tried faces. It should be a similar process. If you don’t want/need animated textures, you can skip this step.

 

The MAB files contain all the frames for animated textures used in a scene. King Kahuka wears a mask and so does not have a very visible face during the cutscene, but his face is animated nonetheless so I’m going to copy that animation across. To get your model’s original animated texture frames, open the MAB file for its folder in the binary file editor. You’ll see something that looks like this:

 

 

You can see the names of different materials listed here, with frame numbers in between. This determines which texture is shown, and when. You can edit these if you want to but to keep things simple I’ll leave mine as they are. The bottom part of the file contains the animation sequences that use those frames. I’m going to copy the frame list and paste it into that part of the MAB for CIRCUIT1, and I’ll copy the animation sequence and paste it into the animations part of the MAB. Make sure you paste them at the bottom of their sections. You’ll need to update the square brackets for both parts.

 

At the moment, my game would use Captain Redbeard’s expressions for King Kahuka, and I don’t want that. Have a look at the k_27 part of the animation sequence entry. It will look something like this:

 

k_27    // Material Frame(s)

0

15

 

This tells the game which frames to use in the animation. The first number represents the first frame of the animation (again, starting from 0). The second number is the number of frames in the animation. To correct the first number, count the position,starting from 0, of the first frame of the list you just copied. It’ll be the one with a 0 underneath. Then count how many frames are in the animation, including the first. In my case, the first frame of Kahuka’s animation is 14. You shouldn’t need to change the second number unless you’ve added or removed frames. So now my k_27 looks like this:

 

k_27    // Material Frame(s)

14

15

 

The game will still play the first sequence instead of this one, but we’ll fix that in a moment. Now you need to open the CDB file in the folder where your model came from. This is the one for CIRCUIT2:

 

 

Scroll down until you find the entry for your model. It will look something like this:

 

k_2E    // Model(s)

"dummy00"

{

k_30    // Model Name

"dummy01"

k_34    // Model Rotation

(float)0.999048

(float)-0.043618

(float)0

(float)0

(float)0

(float)1

k_2D    // Animation Sequence ID

0

k_33    // Model Location

(float)33.26736

(float)-35.13164

(float)-8.161795

k_2B    // Start Frame

0

k_2C    // Duration (or end frame if this is on a light)

480

k_36

[1]

{

0

0

0

1

0

}

}

 

Static models, and models without material animations will not have all of these sections. Copy the entry for your model and paste it into the CDB of your destination cutscene. Remember to update the square brackets under “k_2E    // Model(s)” at the start of the model list.

 

As I said earlier, the coordinates listed in the CDB file are the ones used to position the models. But before you do that, if your model has an animated material we’ll need to tell the game which sequence to use. Look at the k_36 part of the code:

 

k_36

[1]

{

0

0

0

1

0

}

 

The number we’re interested in is the third one. This determines which sequence to use for the animated material (I don’t know what the other numbers do). If the animated you added to the MAB was the second in the list, you’ll need to use a 1 here. This is my updated K_36 code:

 

k_36

[1]

{

0

0

1

1

0

}

 

Now the only thing left to do is to change the model’s position in the cutscene (not in the WDB!). We can’t use the coordinate viewer here because it’s not a track we can drive around, so look at the other models for reference. I’m going to copy Redbeard’s location and rotation values and paste them over Kahuka’s. Then I’ll change either the x or y coordinates slightly and see what that does. This is the result of having Kahuka +5 on the x-axis from Redbeard:

 

 

And that concludes this tutorial. From what I’ve covered you should be able to add models into any scene. The possibilities of what you can do are much more than just the things I’ve shown here, so experiment with the files and see what kinds of crazy stuff you can do. By messing with the binary files you can remove or replace models, change camera angles and timings...there’s probably not much you can’t do with a bit of trial and error. I’m sure you can come up with something a bit more creative than a UFO in a pirate level

 

If you have any questions or problems, feel free to ask, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to help. It really is just a matter of experimentation.

[RobExplorien]

A very comprehensive tutorial, but you're right, I already see that there are much more possibilities.

[Jimbob]

Phew, that's quite a big read, but incredibly valuable nonetheless! Thank you for this, Brickulator.

[Aokpisz]

I can only gape in awe at how much work you put into this tutorial, how much work it takes to do this, and the enormous amount of possibilities this opens up for LR.

 

Thank you so much.

[alan]

Really awesome!! Thanks, Brickulator! I hope to test it soon!

 

 

I have a question:

The 3 numbers under the “GDB/ADB/SDB reference†heading determine which files the model uses. These will probably be wrong, so you’ll need to change them. They refer to the GDB, ADB and SDB lists at the start of the file. Each number is that file’s position in the list. But it is very important to note that in these lists (and other lists like these in these binary files), the first item in the list is number 0, the second is 1, the third is 2, etc. So if you wanted to use the 10th file in the list, that would be number 11.

 

Shouldn't it be number 9 if you seek for the 10th entry in the list?

[Brickulator]

I have a question:

The 3 numbers under the “GDB/ADB/SDB reference†heading determine which files the model uses. These will probably be wrong, so you’ll need to change them. They refer to the GDB, ADB and SDB lists at the start of the file. Each number is that file’s position in the list. But it is very important to note that in these lists (and other lists like these in these binary files), the first item in the list is number 0, the second is 1, the third is 2, etc. So if you wanted to use the 10th file in the list, that would be number 11.

 

Shouldn't it be number 9 if you seek for the 10th entry in the list?

You're right, thanks for pointing that out. I'll change it now.

[alan]

Okay.


@Cyrem: Can you please pin that topic? It is extremely important for modding LR!



Edit:

I now managed to import the dancing KK to Tribal Island Trail (but I didn't place him right, just let him hover somewhere around the finish line in the air... maybe he's a guru). But there's one important thing about the Coordinate Viewer when decimal numbers are separated with commas instead of dots in your country:

 

The Coordinate Viewer gives the coordinates with commas, but the .WDB file for the coordinates (and also other binary files) only accept coordinates separated with dots! You have to change the commas to dots or there will be a syntax error!

 

Edit 2: This bug is fixed when you use the newest version of the Coordinate Viewer (thanks to grappigegovert for updating his tool)!

[Brickulator]

I now managed to import the dancing KK to Tribal Island Trail (but I didn't place him right, just let him hover somewhere around the finish line in the air... maybe he's a guru). But there's one important thing about the Coordinate Viewer when decimal numbers are separated with commas instead of dots in your country:

 

The Coordinate Viewer gives the coordinates with commas, but the .WDB file for the coordinates (and also other binary files) only accept coordinates separated with dots! You have to change the commas to dots or there will be a syntax error!

That's great that you got it to work, and thanks for that information. We use dots for decimal points here so I didn't think about that, I'll add that in to the tutorial.

[alan]

Yes I know but in many european countries you use commas. I already had that issue with the binary editor that saved stuff with comma values but this problem has been fixed by origamiguy after I told him about this problem:

(31/01/2013) v1.3.4779.34743 > Reworked localization to use US-style decimal separators even on non-US machines.

[RobExplorien]

Can you please pin that topic? It is extremely important for modding LR!

The other tutorials aren't of such importance?

[Cyrem]

Holy cow, this is one mega tutorial. It's glorious!

 

May I suggest the topic title be called "Tutorial: Scene Modding & Object Moving" ?

 

Of course this thing is getting pinned.

 

Thank you!

[Brickulator]

May I suggest the topic title be called "Tutorial: Scene Modding & Object Moving" ?

I wasn't sure about the name because you can do so much with these files, but I guess adding "Object Moving" makes sense because that's a big part of it - I'll change the title.

[alan]

Can you please pin that topic? It is extremely important for modding LR!

The other tutorials aren't of such importance?

Some of them are not that important (such as N64 JAM extracting because there aren't many people who own the N64 version). But you are right, there should be more than this one be pinned (Transparency Tutorial, also your Start/Power Up Positions because this is still one of the most undiscovered places of LR, the beginner tutorial by JimbobJeffers and his Skin Texturing tutorial).

[grappigegovert]

But there's one important thing about the Coordinate Viewer when decimal numbers are separated with commas instead of dots in your country:

 

The Coordinate Viewer gives the coordinates with commas, but the .WDB file for the coordinates (and also other binary files) only accept coordinates separated with dots! You have to change the commas to dots or there will be a syntax error!

 

Just updated the coordinate viewer,

it should now force the use of dots instead of commas (not country-specific anymore).

 

Also,

Very nice tutorial, I am sure there are lots of possibilities with this.

[alan]

But there's one important thing about the Coordinate Viewer when decimal numbers are separated with commas instead of dots in your country:

 

The Coordinate Viewer gives the coordinates with commas, but the .WDB file for the coordinates (and also other binary files) only accept coordinates separated with dots! You have to change the commas to dots or there will be a syntax error!

 

Just updated the coordinate viewer,

it should now force the use of dots instead of commas (not country-specific anymore).

 

Also,

Very nice tutorial, I am sure there are lots of possibilities with this.

Thank you!

I'll try the update tomorrow. If it works (what I think) I'll post it here so that the note could be deleted.

 

Edit:

Okay, it works! Now you can write in your tutorial that the newest version of the Coordinate Viewer is necessary!

[Brickulator]

Just updated the coordinate viewer,

it should now force the use of dots instead of commas (not country-specific anymore).

I'll try the update tomorrow. If it works (what I think) I'll post it here so that the note could be deleted.

I'll change it to say that it was updated, and that people should make sure they have the latest version. Thanks for updating it, grappigegovert, and thanks again to alan for pointing it out.

[plakrast]

Is there any way yet to edit the collision maps as well? I haven't heard anything about those, and that could be a very interesting thing to mod.

[alan]

Is there any way yet to edit the collision maps as well? I haven't heard anything about those, and that could be a very interesting thing to mod.

 

Not yet, at least I haven't figured out yet. I don't know whether the others know more about it...

[Brickulator]

Is there any way yet to edit the collision maps as well? I haven't heard anything about those, and that could be a very interesting thing to mod.

 

 

Not yet, at least I haven't figured out yet. I don't know whether the others know more about it...

I haven't looked much into it, but swapping collision maps between tracks seems to crash the game. I did manage to create a kind of collision wall by increasing the friction of a material, but instead of just bouncing off I got stuck in that material -.-

[plakrast]

Is there any way yet to edit the collision maps as well? I haven't heard anything about those, and that could be a very interesting thing to mod.

 

 

>Not yet, at least I haven't figured out yet. I don't know whether the others know more about it...

I haven't looked much into it, but swapping collision maps between tracks seems to crash the game. I did manage to create a kind of collision wall by increasing the friction of a material, but instead of just bouncing off I got stuck in that material

Yeah, that wouldn't be ideal. It's cool that we CAN change the friction, at least. It's too bad that the collision map is one object instead of made up of separate boxes or whatever. Object moving would be much more useful if the collision map automatically changed with it.

[Brickulator]

Yeah, that wouldn't be ideal. It's cool that we CAN change the friction, at least. It's too bad that the collision map is one object instead of made up of separate boxes or whatever. Object moving would be much more useful if the collision map automatically changed with it.

I'm sure it's possible to change it, it's just a load of numbers isn't it? But it would be very tedious and probably very complicated to work out exactly what to do.

You can have some fun by messing with the material physics. I got some entertaining results when I changed the values for ice on Ice Planet Pathway You can also remove (or modify) friction from materials like sand and snow, like using NSLWJ for specific materials. And you can change the particle effects produced when you drive over them.

[plakrast]

Yeah, that wouldn't be ideal. It's cool that we CAN change the friction, at least. It's too bad that the collision map is one object instead of made up of separate boxes or whatever. Object moving would be much more useful if the collision map automatically changed with it.

I'm sure it's possible to change it, it's just a load of numbers isn't it? But it would be very tedious and probably very complicated to work out exactly what to do.

You can have some fun by messing with the material physics. I got some entertaining results when I changed the values for ice on Ice Planet Pathway You can also remove (or modify) friction from materials like sand and snow, like using NSLWJ for specific materials. And you can change the particle effects produced when you drive over them.

 

All of those things will certainly be helpful just for fooling around (or, dare I say it? making custom tracks) but until the data for the models are completely understood, and probably until a practical tool is made to perform the task, such modifications as custom collision maps will be quite difficult, or at least rare. Friction is good, but making our own tracks/collision maps would be even cooler, obviously. Anyway, this tutorial is another good step in that direction.

[Rocket Racer]

I'm encountering this almost a year after it was posted, and I must say that I really love this comprehensive tutorial!

Thank you!

[Brickulator]

I'm encountering this almost a year after it was posted, and I must say that I really love this comprehensive tutorial!

Thank you!

Oh man it was a year ago today I posted this and I have done absolutely nothing of any note with this stuff, oops :|

[Samhamnam]

How do I duplicate the door on the test track? It will only show a texture.