jigebren's Re-Volt stuff

Here you can find some stuff I wrote for Re-Volt, a great radio-controlled car racing game released by Acclaim Entertainment in 1999.

Tools

WolfR4

WolfR4 is a launcher for Re-Volt (version 1207), designed to fix some Re-Volt bugs, add some features and tweaks, allow more elaborated user tracks (called Custom tracks) or to deeply customize Re-Volt (custom championship, replace stock cars, etc.).

As from 2010/07/28, WolfR4 is now publicly available.

More information as well as the download link can be found on the dedicated WolfR4 webpage:

prm2hul

In Re-Volt, the collision data for cars and movable objects are stored in a .hul file.
This tool is an attempt to automatically create a .hul file from a .prm/.m file.

You can take a look at a screenshot here.
For bug report, and question, suggestion, more info, etc., please refer to this topic on ORP Forum.

Very basic instructions are included in the archive. More documentation should come eventually...

Preformatted sheets

Collision spheres data generated by prm2hul can be automatically copied in the clipboard in a tabulated format, so that it can be easily pasted in any spreadsheet program (like eg. OOo's Calc or Excel).

For convenience, I'm providing here 3 pre-formatted sheets.

prm2hul preformatted sheet for Open Office
prm2hul preformatted sheets for Excel & Open Office

WorldCut

WorldCut allows to update the content of a world file (.w) to properly use Cubes and BigCubes (in the same way as stock tracks).
Cubes and BigCubes are part of the World file format. They're both used in Re-Volt as way to improve the FPS, as they lessen the number of tests needed to know which polygons actually have to be rendered. The method is: if the current camera can't see a BigCube, all included Cubes can be skipped directly (not need to test them one by one). In the same way, if a Cubes can't be seen, all included polygons can be skipped directly. The opposite is also valid: if a Cube is fully included in the view frustum, all polygons will be rendered (no need to check them individually either). Of course, there is also the intermediary state (ie. a Cube is only partially visible, so polygons have to be checked one by one).

For more infos about Cubes and BigCubes, you can have a look at the following two topics on ORP:

• Improve Jailhouse Rock Fps, or any extreme user track
• Funnyballs, Investigating n' discussing

The WorldCut tool is able to:
- merge all Cubes in a single Cube (one englobing BigCube is also created).
- remove duplicate vertices inside existing Cubes (based on vertices position
and normal vector).
- distribute the world's polygons in several Cubes along a virtual 3D grid
(the grid step can be set).
- associate the Cubes to englobing BigCubes. BigCubes are using another
virtual 3D grid with a greater step.

Basic instructions are included in the archive. More documentation should come eventually...

Don't hesitate to report any bug / suggestion in this topic on ORP forum.

Patch 512 (deprecated)

The goal of this patch is to allow the use of 512 x 512 pixels textures in the game for cars, models and levels, instead of previous 256 x 256 textures.

It's still in beta stage, but seems to work correctly. It supports the 1207 and 0916 patched revolt version (not the original 1.00 version).

Note that to actually benefit from this patch, you'll need 512x512 pixels textures. You can try the textures pack below.

Basic instructions included in the archive.

Set of 512x512 textures

This is a pack of textures designed to be used with the 512 Patch.

I have resized all original ReVolt textures to 512x512 pixels with a little tool written especially for that purpose (see RV Textures Resizer just below). The first aim was to prevent some artifacts that can appear if we keep using 256x256 textures in the 512 patched game, but it can also be a good starting point for any eventual improvement job on these textures.

There is no extra work on them (I mean nothing done by hand) so don't expect any magical improvement of the textures quality. However, the resizement process is designed to be a bit smarter that what would be obtained from a common image processor software:
- Texture are resized with smooth filtering (bicubic). This can create overshoot, but it better preserves sharpness than bilinear filtering. It is thus possible that the result looks a little better compared to non-resized textures in the non-patched game (but keep in mind that achieving a really perfect result would implies to redraw all textures by hand).
- This tool is aware of the fact that black pixels are rendered in the game as transparent pixels (black is used as colorkey). So an independent smooth filtering is applied on the black pixels. Compared to the original textures, this will increase the smoothness of the edges between transparent and non-transparent pixels.

To install this pack, extract the archive below in the revolt directory (it's up to you to make a backup). Of course, ReVolt has to be patched with the Patch 512 above (updated: or with WolfR4).

RV Textures Resizer

This tool is intended to be used with the Patch 512. It will resize re-volt textures and create the appropriate mipmaps textures (.bmq files). It can thus be used to quickly convert all existing stock and user tracks to a "512x512 textured" state.

Bug report, etc. can be done on ORP forum.

Notice: This tool is released "as is" and should be considered as a Beta version.

Screen aspect ratio patch (deprecated)

The default value of Re-Volt display aspect ratio is 4:3. If your screen doesn't match that criteria, the image is stretched to fill the screen, thus looking distorted.

This patch will modifiy the display aspect ratio of Re-Volt.
Currently, there is 2 versions of the patch: one for the 16:9 screens, and one for 5:4 screens. Choose the one that better fit your screen ratio.

Future version may support all screen ratios, but I have to find time to write the interface, etc.

Only version 1207 of Re-Volt is supported.

Bug report, etc. can be done on ORP forum.

Information

Models files information

I created this file to help the track makers who want to use ReVolt models in their tracks and want to know which texture is used by each model.

ReVolt models files information.txt

Download

Re-Volt Patch 1207

Two paches have been released for Re-Volt: the official 0916, and later the unofficial 1207.
Patch 0916 introduced the -sli and -nomip command line switches, and the possibility to select user tracks in multiplayer.
Patch 1207 does the same, and also deactivates the CD check (thus removing the CD music playback), introduces -nostars and -noforce command line switches, and adds 3D sound support for Aureal A3D 1.0, DirectSound 3D and DirectSound3D with EAX 2.0. It also comes with a new utility "prm2ncp.exe" for creating collision files (.ncp) from instance model files (.prm).

Here you can find the Patch 1207.

Sound update

Re-Volt uses the Miles System Sound to play sounds and music (the Mss32.dll file) (mss16.dll and mss16.tsk are of no use nowadays and can be removed).

The original Re-Volt CD is supplied with MSS version 5.0a.
The Patch 1207, which brings 3D sound support in Re-Volt, comes with MSS
version 6.0a.
Here you can find MSS version 6.0m, which seems to be the last version to work properly in Re-Volt.

I tried more recent version like MSS 6.1a, but sound seemed 'scratchy'.
In even more recent versions, like 6.5 and later, some function names have changed, and it makes the dll impossible to use with Re-Volt (typical error message is about "Entry point not found").

To install this update, download the archive below and extract the Mss32.dll file in the Re-Volt directory (of course it would be a good idea to have a backup of your original Mss32.dll file).

Last edited: 2011/11/11