VGMaps
General Boards => Map Requests => Topic started by: The Ultimate Koopa on May 10, 2008, 04:47:54 pm
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Are there any pictures of the courses that show the entire course? (Like for Double Dash, there's some pictures on the internet somewhere, that show the entire coloured course in one)?
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The only thing I can think of would be the in-game mini-map showing the course while you're racing. But even that's transparent and not at all detailed...
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"So this is what it's like..."
- Spark Mandrill
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Can you please post a link to the MKDD course maps?
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I think it was on the official MKDD flash site thing ...
which doesn't exist now...
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I found those MKDD maps I was talking about. I got them for all courses except Peach Beach. You can view them here:
http://dsultimate.net/Board/upload/showpost.php?p=29729&postcount=1
(That's a topic for members of that site to submit their times)
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The only way to get that sort of thing is to reverse-engineer the data on the disc. That's doable but a huge amount of work.
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I was actually thinking, now, that you could probably use a moon jump code to see the whole track. I'm sure the same could be done in MKDS, however, I lost my ARDS <_<
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*bump*
Making maps for Mario Kart Wii should be possible, and it's not really that hard. Here, look at this site: http://www.amnoid.de/gc/ or this image: http://www.amnoid.de/gc/screenie.jpg or this forum thread: http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=43273
Compression formats on the Wii are often identical or very similar to the GC, and since the program can open MKDD tracks, I'm sure you can open MKW tracks as well. I havn't tried it myself though, because I do not own a Wii or a rom of it.
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It should be able to (I don't really know what 'it' is <_<)
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That's all fine, but the real problem is how to convert a 3D model into a 2D map without losing relevant data.
Think about how Rainbow Road would look from a top-down 2D view. The corkscrews would look like loops, any indication of height would be lost, etc.
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Very true, but maybe you can do a view from an angle, kind of what DarkWolf did for the Wolf3D maps. Doing those maps in 2D would have lost a lot of information as well, but the way he did it is awesome.
I should have some 3D models from MK64 lying around (and possibly MKDD too), maybe I can do some tests with it :D
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Maybe the best solution would be to upload the 3D environments as textured 3D models? (obj, 3ds...)
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I've seen more complexed maps which which be a nightmare to make detailed and in a way people could understand. They're from the game Descent by Interplay. Try it out and you'll see it.
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Unfortunately, games that truly exploit the 3D aspect in their stage design are often difficult if not impossible to properly represent on a 2D map.
And even if you somehow manage it, you only do so through a lot of compromise. You have to do things like schematize or show multiple views of the same area. In short, you simply cannot communicate all the intricacies and all the beauty of a stage in a single instance the way you can with most 2D games.
Take Metroid Prime for example. That game has gorgeous stages with wide open spaces full of life, lots of corridors and cramped rooms, secret tunnels with puzzles for the Morph Ball, etc. You can't show all this to anyone unless you play the game in front of them. You can't do an awesome collage showing all the various areas in the games put together the way mappers have done for all the 2D Metroid games. Sometimes, I feel the only way to do it would be to extract all the game's level data, 3D models and all, find a way to then render the level with items, enemies and everything on the computer from whatever angle you want, with transparencies being used whenever a part of the map hides another. And even if someone managed to accomplish such a monumental task (unless he worked for Retro on said game), I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to find an angle from which you could see an entire area without hiding something somewhere or making a room's structure somewhere hard to make out. And that sucks!
Oh yeah, and I remember Descent (I only played the first one). It had a great automap that you could rotate in every direction, and unfortunately it was absolutely required to do so because many levels had nightmarish structures and it was incredibly easy to get lost somewhere because you didn't recognize a certain room simply by not being oriented the same way when revisiting it.
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Current projects: Metal Storm (NES), Clock Tower (SNES), Ristar-The Shooting Star (Gen), Sonic The Hedgehog (Gen), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES), Bucky O'Hare (NES)
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I was thinking something along these lines --
DK Summit/DK's Snowbard Cross:
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/104/942008_20080414_screen002.jpg
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But... Where's half of the track? That hill obscures most of the "map". There is also no way on earth that you would be able to do something like that with a track like Wario's Gold Mine either.
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Well, how about this kind of thing? This is Dino Dino Jungle:
http://www.mariowiki.com/images/0/02/Mkddtrack14.jpg
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That would be more useful. It would require a bit of modeling work in order to open up the tunnels, but at least the entire map would be visible.
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Or, render the thing in 3D texture-mapped Flash. But you still have the problem of the Descent automap.