What?!? Regular bitmaps work in game? That's surprising.
Then why was it the first thing you said?
Except, as far as I know, the two custom texture formats in LEGO Racers have little to do with the common BMP format, they just happen to have a ".bmp" extension tacked on. Obviously, we can't do much with the completely compressed "BMP" files in LEGO Racers, but as for the other format, we can read the blocks out of the image that aren't compressed, and create images in that format by simply not compressing any of the blocks (which, as far as I know, is what Will did for the awesomeface experiment). However, even those completely uncompressed custom "BMP" files have little to do with standard BMP files like you tried. Frankly, from what you've said here, this seems more like a stroke of luck that standard BMP files worked, rather then the LR1 BMP formats having anything to do with standard BMPs and deducing that they would work. And the reason I was hesitant to take you at your word that they worked is because none of the more experienced people here have made any mention of it, and you... erm... Haven't exactly been the most reliable source of information on stuff like this before. You seem to often rush to posting your finds before completely researching them, and your previous posts here seemed exactly like another one of these:
http://legouniverse....7/This_Is_Wacky
http://legouniverse....sster,_It_Works
http://legouniverse....39;s_a_Wookiee!
Why do I get the feeling this has to do with that comment you left on the LEGO Racers test animation video? Also, see above.
jamesster is correct. The custom bitmap format LEGO Racers uses is nothing like a real bitmap. Also, each version of normal bitmaps isn't very much like the other. 24 bit bitmaps are just straight BGR (in that order) values stored in sequential 3 byte blocks (plus a header). 32 bit bitmaps are like 24 bit bitmaps, but are 4 byte chunks for an alpha channel. Lower bit bitmaps are reduced in color depth and lower still are pallet based (if I remember correctly). If the game is using non-custom bitmaps, the engine must have been set up to use them (it would make it easier to test).