Modding and restoration discussion

[Lee Der]

Glad to see that the mod is being shared! This is TAIYO, I'm in charge of the in-game logos.
We had been investigating a lot to make sure that the car logos are sourced from brochures, leaflets and other official media.

If you guys have any question, I can relay it to the other devs of the A-SPEC Project.

Are you guys going to restore those cars: VW Golf Cabriolet, road-going Cobra Daytona (i once saw her in demo disc video), Alfa Romeo 155 GTA (her logo still exists in demo), Escort 1.8, Escort RS2000, all of the cut Ferrari and Porsche, RM for XJR-15, Rex Supercharger VX and the XK-180?

 

[Epic B]

The Daytona Coupe never had a road version so I doubt they would.

 

[pez2k]

The 'road version' being referred to is basically the Daytona texture with the Mazda Demio paint colours applied to it, presumably as a test of their tooling or a default setup before they made the right colour palette. It's one of the things that convinces me that almost all of the cars were textured in silver then had colour palettes applied with a tool - there's even a mask in the texture files that separates the parts that should be recoloured from those that shouldn't, and mistakes in that mask are directly linked to palette errors like the paint-colour exhaust on the E55 AMG.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

A A-Spec Mod video about the FK/Massimo Supra!

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

A video about the Valvoline Taurus stock car, no longer a RM.


Another race car that's no longer a RM, the Lister Storm GT2.

 

[Jandarman]

Don't know if this was told before or no - but I was wondering, maybe instead of trying to add new dealerships for new car manufacturers (as far as I know game simply don't see them) we might simply rename existing in-game manufacturers dealerships and replace existing cars in them (changing 3d models/specs)? Is it possible senior modders?

If this is possible, then new total conversion mod can be created for GT2.

one more thing: I've seen that one guy created new race track in GT2 and tested it in game (but I haven't seen any opponents in that race. Maybe because of that AI doesn't know this track cause it's new to game)

 

[submaniac93]

You can change every single car in the game with new ones if you so desire. It's been possible for a while now. It's just a realy huge amount of work. I myself am remaking a big chunk of GT2 and it's taking me years at this point to get anywhere (even excluding the huge burnout state i've been in for a few months)

As for the video, it's a mod for an other game base, not GT2. Track modding isn't a thing at this point in time and won't be for the foreseeable future as nobody is looking into them.

 

[Jandarman]

No. I'm not pretending to mod all cars - it's insane. But want to experiment with GT2-modding. It's just a hobby for me and who knows - maybe somebody will join to this party. It's an art process and it's absolutely free for all (no forcing here)

I saw in some video one guy that mentioned pez2k and told about some program that can edit ingame car specs, but forget the name of the program. It was made by pez2k too.

And another question - where are the cars specs are located? in "carparams" folder? If yes - then how to unpack .dat files that present in it? (solved - with GT2DataSplitter)

 

[Jandarman]

Well. I'm in the process of making new car for GT2. I understand how to create all necessary textures for it, but one thing keeps me dumb af. FOR WHAT PURPOSE POLYPHONY USED COLOR PALETTES? I checked those palettes for various cars and they are similar in terms of used colors in them, but they don't represent actual colors of cars. So - what's the real purpose of these palettes anyway? Can anybody explain me this? And how should I know how much palettes should I use for this or other car?

and one more thing:
there is 2 ways in which I can obtain color palettes of existing in-game car

1) By drag & drop .cdp file on _GT2TextureEditor - to editable.bat (extracting 1 bmp file and folders with .pal PaintShopPro palettes)
2) By drag & drop .cdp file on _GT2TextureEditor - dump (dumps .bmp files)
Which of those must be packed into VOL archive in order to used by game correctly? I suspect that .pal files must be used, but I might be wrong

 

[pez2k]

FOR WHAT PURPOSE POLYPHONY USED COLOR PALETTES? I checked those palettes for various cars and they are similar in terms of used colors in them, but they don't represent actual colors of cars. So - what's the real purpose of these palettes anyway? Can anybody explain me this? And how should I know how much palettes should I use for this or other car?

Each face can only be textured with up to 16 colours, but obviously a whole car needs a lot more colours than that. To do this, while still only using 16 colours at a time, the game switches which 16 colours are in use depending on the face being drawn, by switching between different palettes applied to the same texture bitmap.

Each car then has multiple paint / livery colours, which are implemented by providing a different set of palettes for the same texture. A lot of these palettes will be the same between paint colours, for example the headlights and windows need to stay the same colour, but the palette colours used for, say, the painted sides and roof will change in order to recolour those parts. Polyphony's artists most likely textured most of the cars in silver, then colourised the texture with each paint colour, masking out the bits that shouldn't change. We don't have access to any of their tooling though, so I implemented things in the simplest way possible that supported all features of the CDP file format.

1) By drag & drop .cdp file on _GT2TextureEditor - to editable.bat (extracting 1 bmp file and folders with .pal PaintShopPro palettes)
2) By drag & drop .cdp file on _GT2TextureEditor - dump (dumps .bmp files)
Which of those must be packed into VOL archive in order to used by game correctly? I suspect that .pal files must be used, but I might be wrong

I have no idea what those batch files are - the readme file for the tool includes all usage instructions.

 

[Jandarman]

Thank you @pez2k - now I get it. At least on theoretical level. Will try to implement this on my car.

 

[submaniac93]

The batch files are mine, just drag and drop shortcuts for your commands, pez.

You can't use the dump function for modding, it's really only good for quickly getting an overview of the various palettes and what they affect.
The .pal files and folders is what you need to edit.

 

[PuffelPizza]

Apparently they're adding Christine to the game!

 

[Jandarman]

Does GTplanet has its own Discord server?

actually no - another question:
How to unpack gtmenudat.dat? I tried GT2DataSplitter and GT2DataExploder with no luck
solved

edit: AdeyBlue's video helped me out, but sometimes GMCreator can't explode gtmenudat (even when I change GT version in it's settings menu)

 

[Jandarman]

Btw - does fans of GT have some mostly beloved car in their minds which can be called "shut up & take my credits" ? I mean it may never existed in GT series, but if it would be added to the GT2 as a mod, then players would play it? Does such a car exist senior Fans?

 

[Dave A]

Btw - does fans of GT have some mostly beloved car in their minds which can be called "shut up & take my credits" ? I mean it may never existed in GT series, but if it would be added to the GT2 as a mod, then players would play it? Does such a car exist senior Fans?

I'm sure it does, either a car in the game or otherwise. This isn't really the best place to wishlist cars, but there are several cars in GT2 that I love to buy/win every time I restart that game and there are no shortage of cars I'd have loved to have been in the game.

 

[Indigo Mizumi]

Apparently they're adding Christine to the game!

Yeah, that's planned for Project A-Spec. You better believe I'm excited for when the full mod comes out. I already got an early look at a beta of it. In general it's a really exciting time for GT modding.

 

[Jandarman]

@Dave A .Ok then - I will make new thread for it

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

I finally completed my new video regarding Project A-Spec.

 

[Dave A]

I finally completed my new video regarding Project A-Spec.

This mod looks excellent, thanks for your coverage of it and to the modders developing it.

 

[SestoScudo]

To all GT2 modders thank you for keeping this legendary game alive and making it better in every possible way.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

As I promised (on my channel anyway), here's part 2 of that tour video for A-Spec.

 

[GTvsForza]

I would absolutely love a mod that adds the R4 cars.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

 

[Dave A]

I believe version 1 of this mod is releasing tomorrow. Unfortunately, well, actually, fortunately, I'm on holiday, but I'll look forward to downloading it the weekend after.

Will you be doing a video based on the first release version?

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

I believe version 1 of this mod is releasing tomorrow. Unfortunately, well, actually, fortunately, I'm on holiday, but I'll look forward to downloading it the weekend after.

Will you be doing a video based on the first release version?

I might do something small like show a few extra changes and cars not present in the previous mods. I kinda want to make a review of the mod in-general at some point.

Though a lot of the videos will probably be more of these short videos.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

Bitter GT1 Gameplay in Project A-Spec

 

[Elvio_Lento]

Release trailer

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

Gameplay of the released build.

 

[SestoScudo]

GT2 is full of hard codes to be able to do these mods with these limitations.

Man respect to all the modders out there for making GT2 even better.