Tracks

Customize user-made tracks through new entries in the level *.inf file and the extensive custom folder support.

End Position

There is a new ENDPOS key for use with Sprint tracks. This is only applicable when GAMETYPE is 4. Upon changing either the STARTPOS or ENDPOS, the AI Nodes and Pos Nodes must be re-saved.

ENDPOS          -17784 -8846 -90895  ; End position coordinates
ENDPOSREV       -17784 -8846 -90895

ENDPOSREV is a deprecated keyword. The new way to specify values for reversed mode is by placing a dedicated reversed *.inf. See Reversed Mode Customization.

Added in version 19.0907a.

Starting Grids

New 3-car wide STARTGRID with type numbers 4 and 5 have been added for use in custom tracks.

STARTGRID       4  ; Grid type (0 - 5, type 2 reserved for frontend)
STARTGRIDREV    4

STARTGRIDREV is a deprecated keyword. The new way to specify values for reversed mode is by placing a dedicated reversed *.inf. See Reversed Mode Customization.

The behavior when repositioning directly to the start grid (eg., in Time Trial mode) can be customized. Use the STARTGRIDRESET key and set it to either 0 or 1.

  1. Car is reset to the node above the start grid. This is useful when the start grid is actually a platform that moves up.
  2. Car is actually reset to the start grid (the default).
STARTGRIDRESET  1  ; Grid reset behavior (0: node reset, 1: grid reset)

Difficulty

A custom track's difficulty can be set by adding the following line to the track's *.inf file:

DIFFICULTY      1  ; Display difficulty (0:Unknown, 1:Easy, 2:Normal, 3:Hard, 4:Extreme)

Added in version 17.1009a.

Obtain

A custom track can have unlockability conditions that work similar to stock content. Set this using the OBTAIN keyword. Just as a car's Obtain value is linked to its Rating, a track's OBTAIN value is linked to its DIFFICULTY.

OBTAIN          0  ; Obtain level (-1:Never, 0:Default, 1...5)

The default OBTAIN behavior for custom tracks is to unlock the track and all its variants immediately. For stock tracks, the standard unlockability rules apply. Rest of the options are documented below.

  1. Unlock by winning Championship in the appropriate tier.
  2. Unlock by finding Practice mode stars in the appropriate tier.
  3. Unlock by beating Time Trial challenges in the appropriate tier.
  4. Unlock by winning Single Races in the appropriate tier.
  5. Unlock by collecting all stars in Stunt Arena.

For OBTAIN level 1 and above, unlocking a track does not automatically unlock its variants. These are unlocked by beating the track's challenge times, specified with the CHALLENGE keyword. If no challenge time is found, the variants are unlocked immediately.

  • Reversed mode is unlocked by beating the Normal challenge time.
  • Mirrored mode is unlocked by beating the Reversed challenge time.
  • Reversed Mirrored mode is unlocked by beating the Mirrored challenge time.

Added in version 20.0430a.

Challenge Times

User-made tracks can now set challenge times to be beaten in Time Trial with new level *.inf keywords CHALLENGE and CHALLENGEREV. General syntax:

CHALLENGE       0 54 0  ; Time in <min sec ms>
CHALLENGEREV    0 52 0

CHALLENGEREV is a deprecated keyword. The new way to specify values for reversed mode is by placing a dedicated reversed *.inf. See Reversed Mode Customization.

Added in version 18.0330a.

Sweep Camera

The starting grid zoom camera can be enabled for a custom track by setting the following line to the track's *.inf file:

SWEEPCAM        1  ; Sweep camera (0:Disabled, 1:Enabled)

Added in version 20.0210a.

Texture Properties

Set various per-texture properties for the level using the TEXTUREPROPS keyword, followed by four values specifying the texture index (0-63), mipmapping (0:disable / 1:enable), wrap mode (0:clamp / 1:repeat / 2:mirrored-repeat) and colorkeying (0:disable / 1:auto). General syntax:

TEXTUREPROPS    3 1 0 1  ; Index - mipmaps - wrap mode - colorkey

For example, use 'TEXTUREPROPS 1 1 1 0' to make texture page B use mipmapping, support mapping outside the boundaries and disable colorkeying (no pure-black transparency).

The colorkey attribute is used to hint that the texture doesn't require alpha testing. It doesn't guarantee that alpha testing is actually disabled.

Added in version 18.0428a.

Rock Type

There is a new level *inf keyword ROCKTYPE, which can be 0 or 1. The default 0 can be used for ship levels, 1 can be used for water surfaces (Boat tracks).

ROCKTYPE    0  ; Rocking type (0:Ship, 1:Water)

Deprecated. New tracks should set rockiness properties in the properties.txt GRAVITY section instead. See the Gravity section.

Added in version 16.0420a.

Custom Music

To play custom music in your level instead of the default soundtrack, use the MUSIC entry in the level .inf file. General syntax:

MUSIC    <Path to music file (or) folder>

As of version 19.0330a, the path accepts either a single file or a folder containing music tracks. If a folder path is provided, the game selects a music track from the folder to be played at random. Supported formats are Ogg (recommended), Flac, MP3, WAV and MIDI (experimental).

This keyword was previously called MP3, which is now deprecated. The MUSIC keyword is recommended for new tracks.

If both MUSIC and REDBOOK lines are present in the inf, MUSIC has higher priority for custom tracks.

Experimental MIDI support was added in version 18.1020a. This requires a SoundFont placed in the soundfonts folder, with the name default.sf2. MIDI playback is only supported on Windows and Linux.

Game Modes

Practice: User tracks can be played in Practice mode. Add a single star object for this mode. When the player finds and catches it, the progress will be saved.

Battle / Stunt / Frontend / Sprint: These special type of tracks can be created with the help of a new GAMETYPE entry in the track .inf file. General syntax:

GAMETYPE    1  ; Track type (0:default, 1:battle, 2:stunt, 3:frontend, 4:sprint)

Add several stars for Battle Tag mode and upto 64 stars for Stunt Arena. The progress is saved for Stunt Arena tracks.

Support for Frontend track type was added in version 19.0120a. See the Frontend Properties section.

Support for Sprint track type was added in version 19.0907a. This requires a valid ENDPOS to be specified.

Reversed Mode: Support for Reversed mode can be added by including a "reversed" folder in your track folder, containing the needed files (see the default levels for example).

The direction of AI Nodes and Pos Nodes can be automatically reversed using special commands in the appropriate edit modes.

File Formats

These options let you select the format to be used when saving files in edit mode, in cases where multiple formats are supported (typically a legacy format for backwards compatibility and newer, modern formats). When not specified, files are saved in the modern format by default.

CAMFORMAT    1  ; Camera nodes format (0:Legacy, 1:Modern)
FLDFORMAT    1  ; Force fields format (0:Legacy, 1:Modern)

Object Thrower

As of version 20.0210a, the Object Thrower trigger supports extended options.

  • Flag low: Thrower object ID.
  • Flag high: The lap to trigger in (0 = any lap, -1 = last lap, n = nth lap).

Level Textures

As of version 19.0120a, RVGL supports up to 64 level textures with an extended naming scheme. File names along with their texture ID are listed in the table below.

Intermediate textures should not be skipped. For example, textures K followed by M is an invalid sequence. The first 10 textures (A-J) are, however, always loaded.

IDFile nameIDFile name
0levela.bmp32levelga.bmp
1levelb.bmp33levelha.bmp
2levelc.bmp34levelia.bmp
3leveld.bmp35levelja.bmp
4levele.bmp36levelka.bmp
5levelf.bmp37levella.bmp
6levelg.bmp38levelma.bmp
7levelh.bmp39levelna.bmp
8leveli.bmp40leveloa.bmp
9levelj.bmp41levelpa.bmp
10levelk.bmp42levelqa.bmp
11levell.bmp43levelra.bmp
12levelm.bmp44levelsa.bmp
13leveln.bmp45levelta.bmp
14levelo.bmp46levelua.bmp
15levelp.bmp47levelva.bmp
16levelq.bmp48levelwa.bmp
17levelr.bmp49levelxa.bmp
18levels.bmp50levelya.bmp
19levelt.bmp51levelza.bmp
20levelu.bmp52levelab.bmp
21levelv.bmp53levelbb.bmp
22levelw.bmp54levelcb.bmp
23levelx.bmp55leveldb.bmp
24levely.bmp56leveleb.bmp
25levelz.bmp57levelfb.bmp
26levelaa.bmp58levelgb.bmp
27levelba.bmp59levelhb.bmp
28levelca.bmp60levelib.bmp
29levelda.bmp61leveljb.bmp
30levelea.bmp62levelkb.bmp
31levelfa.bmp63levellb.bmp

Advanced Customization

Support for advanced custom content in user tracks. This includes:

  • Animated objects
  • Skymap, clouds, other graphics
  • Sound effects
  • Loadscreen image
  • HUD, menu and font

This works by replacing default (stock) data with custom content. When a model, sound, texture, etc. has to be loaded, the file is first searched inside the custom sub-folder located in the current track's folder.

The only thing to do to add custom content in your track is to create a custom folder inside the track's directory and place the custom files inside, with the same name as the stock content you want to replace.

Here is the list of the customizable files:

  • Skyboxes: sky_bk.bmp to sky_tp.bmp
  • All the .wav files (sfx).
  • All Objects added in Edit mode: the .m files and their associated .hul or .ncp files, if any.
  • All track meshes: the .prm files and their associated .ncp files, if any.
  • All track files: .inf, .fob, .fld, .fan, .fin, .cam, .pan, .tri, .taz, .por, .w, vis, .rim, .ncp, .lit and textures.
  • Special textures: trolley.bmp, sun.bmp, dragon.bmp, water.bmp, clouds.bmp.
  • Load screen images: loadlevel1.bmp to loadlevel4.bmp, loadfront1.bmp to loadfront4.bmp.
  • Effect pages: fxpage1.bmp to fxpage3.bmp.
  • Car textures: shadow.bmp, carbox1.bmp to carbox5.bmp.
  • Text and HUD: font.bmp, spru.bmp, spruimage.bmp, acclaim.bmp, loadinga.bmp to loadingc.bmp.
  • Countdown models: gogo.m and go1.m to go3.m.

This is an exhaustive list. The support for some formats was added to be able to release a track compatible with legacy Re-Volt versions. This makes it possible to include eg., a simplified .fob file in the main track folder and a custom .fob file placed in the "custom" folder.

In Reverse mode, the custom version of the files in the reversed folder have to be placed inside the custom\reversed folder to be detected.

Reversed Mode Customization

This feature has been introduced in version 18.0720a and subsequently updated in version 18.0731a.

The ability to customize levels for the reversed variant has vastly improved. All supported level files and a few level graphics can now have reversed variants placed in the reversed or custom\reversed folder.

Below is a list of newly supported files that can have reversed variants:

  • w
  • vis
  • rim
  • ncp
  • lit
  • fob
  • fld
  • por
  • inf
  • properties.txt
  • custom\sky_*.bmp
  • custom\loadlevel*.bmp
  • custom\loadfront*.bmp
  • custom\fxpage*.bmp
  • custom\<level>*.bmp

If one of these files is not present in the reversed or custom\reversed folder, the game will fall back to the forward version of the file. Note that fallback support is only provided for newly added formats. There is no fallback functionality for file formats that were already supported. Specifically, a reversed variant must be provided for these formats:

  • cam
  • fan
  • fin
  • pan
  • taz
  • tri

All supported <level>.inf keywords can be customized for reversed mode by placing a reversed\<level>.inf file. When a reversed\<level>.inf file is found, the STARTPOS, STARTROT, STARTGRID and CHALLENGE keys are taken from that file instead of the REV variants present in the main <level>.inf file.

Limitations

World Polys: Each world mesh supports up to 65535 polys. Large worlds should be chopped into several meshes or "cubes" to avoid hitting this limit.

Collision Polys: The maximum polys supported by the world *.ncp file is limited to 65535. However, it is possible to add any number of additional instance *.ncp files, i.e., the total number of world + instance collpolys can exceed 65535.

Camera Nodes: RVGL gives you the option to save the *.cam file in either the old format or the new format with support for coordinate ranges beyond (-32768, 32768).

Force Fields: RVGL gives you the option to save the *.fld file in either the old format or the new format with extended set of options.

File Limits: Following are the limiting values for various level files:

  • AI Nodes, Pos Nodes, Cam Nodes (4096)
  • Track Zones, Force Fields, Triggers, Visiboxes, Portals (1024)
  • Lights, Objects, Instance Models (1024)
  • Pickups (192 normal + 64 clones = 256)
  • Level Textures, Visibox IDs (64)