You like that car and it does not work? Repair it youself!

Since the start of the mods for this game (ah, the good old days of Xi) almost every player stop clicking "Go to the streets" button because of a single issue: the game crashes.

In this tutorial i'm going to explain how to make a car safe to play on valocity, Roc races, etc, so you all can enjoy the original sense of the game. It is not a short tutorial, because the harm is huge, but when you got the idea, it takes less than 10 minutes to fix any car, so have patience, read it all, and you'll be able to hit the streets again in your favourite car, racing versus the cars you want.


THINGS YOU'RE GOING TO USE.

- First of all, you are going to need a program to edit the java files. I use "Edit Plus 3" but any version of it will do the job. Version 1 is on this place: *LINK*

- Then, you're going to need a grep. A grep is a tool that allows you to change a piece of text in multiple files at the same time. Since we're going to rename a lot of routes, you better get one of these: it makes the work easier, less time consuming, and free of errors, and almost all of them keep a backup just incase you write "Mazdar" instead of "Mazda". I use PowerGREP 4, but there are more like it. Windows Grep is a good free alternative.

- In third place, we need the java pack of the game. Some authors don't release the javas they used with the mod (reasons unknown), but all those .class files you see in the "scripts" folder can be changed with any .java you rename with the same name, as long as you set it in the proper place.
The javas were released long time ago by Activision, and you can find them in G.O.M.-team's site: *LINK*

*NOTE: THIS ARE THE JAVAS FOR 2.2.1 VERSION. THEY MIGHT WORK WITH OTHER VERSIONS OF THE GAME, BUT I NEVER TRIED. GET YOUR HADS DIRTY IF YOU WANT TO.

- Any Hex editor. Just incase.

- And finally, since we're going to edit the RPK of the car, we need the wonderful Resource Converter by Roltzy. you can find it here, in the downloads section of G.O.M.-Team *LINK*

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Ok, now you have your shiny new tools, downloaded a rocket, and it crashes the game. Let's go for it.

1: Identifying the source to apply the correct .javas.

First of all, we need to know what car the modder used to create his mod. And with this, i mean that, more than probably, the modder took the javas of a car that was ingame, and used them as a base for his mod. We need to know what car it is. ¿How? easy.

If the author released the .java files of his mod, they are stored in Cars\racers\nameofthecar\scripts\src. Always.

If the .javas are there, just open the file named whateveritis_models.java with Edit plus. it will show you the models the car is using, and if it's crashing the game, more than probably it will look like this:



The creator of this car used clearly the Duhen javas to make his mod, but didn't renamed the models, nor made it standalone, and your game crashes because it thinks "¡HEY MAN, THERE ARE MORE THAN ONE DUHEN HERE!¡WRONG!".

Before cleaning the mess in this file, we better look for the models the modder created. Sometimes there are more than one version of a car in a mod, so we need to know how many of them are there. To do that, we'll look for the models of the car .javas. in this case, Sunstrip 1.5, 1.8, 2.0 and 2.2, and see what the modder used.



In this case, the author (and i'm not gonna say who was, he'll instantly know) was kind enough to write "Dont use" in the cars he's not using, but in most cases you will have to look for the name of the car to know which ones are used.

I found out the car being used for this mod is the Duhen Sunstrip 1.5 DVC, so i GET RID of the rest of the car javas and config files unused. This means i delete Duhen_Sunstrip_1_8_DVC.java, i go back a level (I'm in "scripts" folder now) and delete Duhen_Sunstrip_1_8_DVC.class, and _main_Duhen_Sunstrip_1_8_DVC.cfg, and do the same with the other two models of the original car, leaving only de 1.5, which is the one the author used for the mod.



"ok, very instructional, but... What if the author didn't released the javas, smartie?"

Good question. That's why we need the Hex editor ¿Remember?.
Sice the .class files are encoded, and i don't know the code used, we will have to open the .class files with it. It will show sth like this:


And if we scroll down a bit:


And we found out what car he used.

Ok, enough for the first time. Tomorrow We'll see how to clean the main .javas and rename the car, so it appears in the car list in the order you wish. If you find this useful, remember to vote on the poll ;)

COFFEE BREAK







2: CLEANING THE MAIN JAVAS, RENAMING

Now that we know what car(s) the modder used, we are going to start cleaning the mess. We already deleted what we don't need, so we are going to tell the program those things aren't there anymore, and that it is not what it thought, but a whole different car.

In this case, since the car is a Honda CRX delSol, i'm going to rename the files with something more like it. Also, we'll rename the RPK and the folder so it shows this car in the list as we want it to. I have my cars ordered by brand, so the new name will be "Honda_CRX_DelSol.RPK" and "Honda_CRX_DelSol_data" for the folder. This will put it behind the Civic, but before the NSX (the list is ordered alphabetically based in the RPK names)

IMPORTANT NOTE: THE FILE STRUCTURE IS CASE SENSITIVE, DO NOT BLEW IT BY CHANGING CASE IN A LETTER.

Also, we'll rename the "Duhen_Sunstrip_1_5_DVC" files to something more like it. in this case it will be as simple as "CRX_DelSol". Now, our main files should be changed from this:


To sth like this:


(There are a lot more files on the folder, for the parts, but they've been ommited to make the idea clear, do not delete them)

As you can see, there's the "src" folder in this car. If it isn't in the car you want to repair, now it's the time to create it. ¿What should you put inside? the main .javas of the car the modder used as a base, and you have in the Javapack. In this case they will be:

Duhen_SunStrip_1_5_DVC.java
Duhen_models.java
Duhen_VT.java

It should look like this:


And rename those files as the corresponding .class files, so they know what to modify:


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Now that we have the folder and the files renamed in working condition, and the source files created, we're going to create our standalone car. The first step is to open the XXXXXX_models.java file. in this case it is "CRX_DelSol_models.java": this is what the file looks like from scratch:



And this is what it may look like once we edit it:


As you can see, I've changed the fields so they fit my personal tastes, what means to be descriptive. You can assign the names you want, but you have to keep in mind what names you used in order to edit the rest of the files. For the MODELS line, it's important to know that you can use whatever number of fields you want, but you have to:

1- use ALPHANUMERIC names. Numeric only names don't work
2- Do not use special symbols


In the next post we are going to rearrange the CRX_DelSol_VT to make the car appear in the different circumstances of the game without crashing when you enter ValoCity, Roc or the dealers.


BEER BREAK



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3. RETURNIN THE CAR TO THE CITY, REPAIRING THE CAR.


Ok, now we're going to take the car back to the city. The file what controls what goes in and out of the dealers, all the races and ValoCity is the XXXXXXX_VT.java, so let's open it with Edit plus.



Underlined in red you can see the file's "name" (it's not just a name) is still the one for the original car, and the route (cars.racers.Duhen) is still aiming for the Duhen RPK. THIS is the main reason why the mods crash. Let's get everything in place:




As before, we get rid of everything related to any car that is not the one the modder used, leaving only the code related with the Duhen 1.5, and set everything as we want it to look. We are not changing the vmd.stockQM because we still need a platform the program can recognize to create the car around it.

And about the 0x00000006 number, we'll go into that later.
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Ok, now we have the connection stablished between the game and our car, it knows it's not one of the cars he used to know, and where to look for the right platform, now we're gonna tell the car all this.

Let's open the main car's .java: CRX_DelSol.java




Since we changed the name of the .javas and of the model in Step 2, we have to show the car what we have done, but, if you look down below, circled in red there are a lot of references aiming for the Duhen RPK. That means the original mod was looking for the parts in the duhen directory, and, since they are not compatible with this chassis, the car will simply appear without them every time. let's fix all this.



Ok, that's it for today, and most of the job is done. Tomorrow we will tweak the .RPK and the routes, and the car will be roaming through ValoCity.


LET'S TAKE A FINAL BREAK







Here, about the parts, you have to take notice about a thing:

Every part has a unique id number (those numbers that look like 0x00000001) If the modder kept the original part numbers, you don't have to change them, but if he added parts, or changed those numbers, you will have to go part by part looking for the right number. The number appears in two files: the part's .cfg file and the main RPK. In the part's .cfg file it is the first number that appears on top of the file. like this



Some mods i found had the original ID number in the cfg file, but the modder changed the part number in the RPK, so let's decode the RPK of the CRX DelSol to see what we must look for.

To decode a RPK you must do the following:

1 copy the RPK to the folder where you put Roltzy's Resource Converter
2 Open Roltzy's Resource converter
3 double click on the RPK (in the Resource converter)
4 the tool will decode the RPK and put a copy in the same directory named "XXXXXX.RDB". you can open it with Notepad.
5 et voila!

This is the CRX DelSol RPK. Let's see if the F_bumper ID number is the same:


If one of the numbers coincide, the odds are on the author of the mod kept all of them. Sometimes it doesn't work this way, and you have to look in the RPK for the right number for some parts.
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Well, now we have the right parts, the only thing left to do is to tell the RPK and the cfg files the new routes and names. For the RPK, we've changed the name of the folder, so he must know it. In notepad, go to the top of the file, press CTRL+H to use the tool "Replace", and reform the old route into the new one:


Use "Replace them all". Then, find the old java files (Duhen_Sunstrip_1_5_DVC.class ¿Remember?), replace them with the new ones we gave to the car, and get rid of the unused cars. It should go from this:




To sth like this:



The lines in red are the ones i edited. The line in green is the last thing we must change in the .RPK. Since we want to make the car standalone, we have to change the alias of the model in the RPK. There are only five or six entries in the file which involve this, but i reccomend doing it one by one, since a lot of other entries may start with the same sentence ("alias Duhen_Sunstrip_1_5_DVC" and "alias Duhen" in this case), but have more content in the same line, and we only want to change the proper ones. If you don't dare to do this, you can only change the one marked in green, and leave the rest as they are.

Ok, now we have a proper .RPK Save the changes, recode it with Roltzy's resource converter (you will have to delete the old RPK) and move it to the proper folder (cars\racers\). And let's chage the routes in the .CFG files. We'll have this nice CRX in ValoCity in no time.


Open the Grep. I will be using PowerGrep 4, but you can use any other. Aim for the Honda_CRX_DelSol_data folder and select it. Include all files inside the folder in the search (You can use *.*) And select "Search and replace"

We are looking for the old route, which was "DelSol_data" in this case, and we want to replace it with the new one we selected ("Honda_CRX_DelSol_data" in my case). With the changes we've made, the grep should look like this before the action:


In this case, the author didn't even used his own route, so 0 results appeared. And so, i thought the routes must be the original ones for the Duhen car, and tried it that way.


And there they are.



Ok. Now we have the proper routes for the parts, the physics, etc. let's see if the car works.



The game cranks, which is a good sign. If you've done something wrong or made a mistake, the game has en Error.log which tells you what went wrong, and where. Try the catalog, and look for all the car's parts. it should show them all. Maybe some are in the wrong place, but they must be there.


Now let's try valoCity


Ok, ok, the lights are wrongly scripted (and some parts too) and the driver is not seated in the proper place, but those things are not a result of the conversion. the original positions of those things are set in the Main Config and the RPK, so the modder simply didn't get them in the proper place. It's not your fault, but you can repair them. The fact is: Your car is working in ValoCity now.



And that's it. It wasn't that hard uh? If you find this useful, post something, and enjoy the game!
 
1.   Posted by faridarfin   2016-08-06 13:37    

:) :) O:-)


2.   Posted by arokbsa   2017-02-10 00:23    

omg,i know this is about 3 years old but really need to say thanks to the author,you make it so simple to understand


3.   Posted by Caballo   2017-02-19 20:10    

You're welcome :)


4.   Posted by Supremen96   2019-08-27 16:06    

The photos are probably impossible to recover, aren't they?


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