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I have been working on a lego racers remaster (sort of... it wont feature AI, it will be online only) for a couple months now... I haven't created a thread on it yet, I will when I have something worth raving over So don't worry .. someone is "slowly" working on it, free time is just an issue

Hullo everyone, Several years ago, I got a copy of LEGO Island from a childhood friend (yes, this is relevant, keep reading), and included on the disk was a program called "LEGO Print Creator", it was even mentioned on the back of the box as a selling point. I tried out LEGO Print Creator as a kid, and honestly I thought it was boring, so I've never bothered using it since. Anyway, skip forward to today, where I rediscovered LPC (LEGO Print Creator), and asked on the RRU Discord if anyone knew about it. Some people were aware it existed, but nothing else. So I decided to boot it up, record some footage of it, and see if there was anything interesting I could dig up from it. According to the "credits", LPC was produced by a company called "The Bending Spoon". Upon Googling their company name (and digging through the various search results for "bending spoon magic trick"), I found a website for a company called "Bending spoons". While they do produce tech products, I can't confirm if their company is related to the one that made this program. The credits also list "The Lost Highway" for assisting with the game's "artwork". Considering half of the application's pictures/images are directly from LEGO Media/Software's previous titles, I'm guessing The Lost Highway was responsible for creating the UI, or the 3D renders used for LPC's icons/buttons (its not unusual for Classic LEGO game developers to outsource stuff to other companies, such as how DDI outsourced "LEGO Rock Raiders" cutscenes to Artworld UK). I should probably mention that my copy of LEGO Island was published by GSP (Global Software Publishing) sometime between 1997-2002 (according to the back of the box. When starting up LPC, and the obligatory LEGO Software logo appears, it states that the game is "copyright 2001", but I cannot confirm if that's the year my copy of LI was released). I've heard that LPC was also included in other classic LEGO game bundles, and I'm curious if those bundles were also published by GSP, or if they were also released between 1997-2002. Initially I was going to explain how the game works using words, but instead I recorded some footage of LPC in action, which you can watch here (I sincerely apologise for how long and boring it is, but I'm only trying to show it in action); Sadly there's not much to it. For a program based on a series of games based on a construction toy that promotes creativity, this software feels extremely... limited. Like, you can rotate and scale characters/objects, but only to pre-set angles and sizes. You can't change the position of a single element, and you have to use the "Select layout" wand to move everything to pre-set locations. There is some indication that the developers wanted the user to have more control, as you can import your own images/pictures (as long as it's a .jpg or .bmp image), and you have full control over the font/size/colour of text, but its not a lot. Probably the best thing about LEGO Print Creator, are the character/object renders, mainly because they are high quality renders of previous LEGO Media: So because LEGO Print Creator has a great collection of high quality renders, I have bundled all the "high resolution" images together into one giant pack for y'all to download and enjoy. Admittedly, some images didn't come with a "high resolution" version, so the quality overall isn't consistent, but its a pretty sweet collection of official high-quality LEGO Media/Software renders. Enjoy: http://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r197/ -- Ben24x7 -- (I'm sorry if this is all incomprehensible gibberish. Its getting extremely late, and I'm having trouble thinking straight)

As always, I'm going to show you guys my custom made cars but this time, its from LEGO Racers 2. First off, I would like to pinpoint some problems here in this game. The problem with the building in LR2 is how not only it limits to twen... ,ahem, 19 bricks but how limit the selection of bricks in use. Most of the bricks only came from a selected theme. Choose one theme, that's all the bricks you can get. Very disappointed with the results. Luckily, some of the mods here have unlocked all cars and bricks and has removed the limits of selecting in one theme but to be honest, I would like to challenge myself to see how far will my creativity go due to number of bricks only in use. Without further ado, let's start The driver I made is Axle, one of the Rock Raiders Crew. Shoutout to RRU community out there. SANDY BAY: I use the digger chassis and looking at it, I have an idea of creating a rally truck. Also I used sloped bricks at the top to add texture to the roof. DINO ISLAND: I would like to use the tank treads at first but after looking at this chassis, I decided to create a transport truck that fits well with the color motif. EDIT: Made so many changes from this one, but after the third iteration, I'm very satisfied with the result. ARCTIC: This one is the souped up version of the martian AI racer's car. The difference is obviously at the back where I add extra detail to it. EDIT: Also made changes but it is very minor, I change the grill piece at the back from white to blue. MARS: This hovercraft is my favorite out of the five I made, thanks to the huge wing plates at the front. Also notice that this build came from the AI racers but I made it much better. XALAX: This one is very simple. Just add black bricks and green plates with a green windshield. I don't know about you but I kinda like the color scheme to be honest. EDIT: Changed the two grey antenna's at the back and replaced it with another green plate and a white flag. So yeah, These are the cars I made while playing Story mode. Will continue to build more cars when I have the time but for now, I'll be doing something else. EDIT: Forgot to point out. All those builds you see here are 19 bricks stack full, including the Xalax car. EDIT 2: Made some changes on Dino Island, Arctic and Xalax Cars. See you guys later. UPDATE: MORE CUSTOM CARS HERE: Been busy lately so I don't have time to get more detailed pictures on each car. UPDATE 2: Added Two more Sandy Bay cars and more pictures in every view of each car

Unsure how much any of this has been discussed in years past. Had some chats with Cire and others about all this a few months back and there was a lot of shrugging and new discoveries, so maybe it's time for a topic. .uv files These only exist for the lowest poly minifigure (triman) and lava monster, as far as I know. Most models in the game use other methods of texture mapping (planar textures), but these files have specifically defined UV coordinates. The game will check for .uv files for every model, and if they're present, try to use their coordinates. The format is super simple, and text based, try opening one in a text editor and you can see how they work. These files may have been created by a custom tool DDI made (which also did a zillion other things), or by something called UView, according to Karl. It sounds like the process may have changed at some point, and his memory was fuzzy on which tool was used in the end. (A forum upgrade broke that link...) (Sadly, a forum upgrade broke that link too...) For more, see the full topic: http://www.rockraidersunited.com/topic/2132-wow-people-i-am-both-stunned-and-impressed/ Bartvbl thought he'd found a possible lead for UView and posted about it there, but I didn't want to spam more quotes than necessary. Back in December I wanted to get the triman model into Unity, so I manually transplanted the coordinates from the .uv files into exported .obj versions of the models (with a little bit of trial and error to figure out the order the coordinates should go in, etc). Here it is next to the highest poly minifigure (which lacks textures, since none of the export methods I tried generated UVs from the planar texture info...). This is also why the game will crash if you replace the VLP minifigure files with HP versions without removing the .uv files; it'll be trying to apply the UV coordinates to a model with way more verts than those defined in the .uv files. Is there a need to figure out how to make new UV files? Probably not. We can already do planar textures, 99% of the vanilla game uses them, and that's usually good enough. You probably only need to look into them if you want textured exports of the triman or lava monster. .x files The game has copies of some models in a standard .x format. Is the game capable of loading them? Did an artist just save in the wrong format accidentally and never remove them? Were they for some other purpose? Who knows. Nobody's looked into them that much, apparently. They've got proper UVs generated from the planar textures, though, which is nice. (Which appear flipped in the program I'm using in the screenshots below but such inconsistencies are aggravatingly common in 3D things...) Some chat logs from December: [8:49 PM] Terrev: whaaa [8:49 PM] Terrev: LP_SmallWheel.x [8:49 PM] Terrev: are these.... [8:50 PM] Terrev: GD_Standard.x [8:50 PM] Terrev: just standard directx models? [8:53 PM] Cyrem: I think the colours are good [8:55 PM] Cyrem: @Terrev textures seem messed up [8:55 PM] Terrev: yeah, flipped [8:55 PM] Cirevam: No, that's because you're in Australia [8:55 PM] Cirevam: It's right-side up for me [8:55 PM] Terrev: I'm just curious why there's random directx models sprinkled around the vanilla game [8:55 PM] Cyrem: haha [8:56 PM] Cyrem: that is odd and I never noticed [8:56 PM] Terrev: presumably not used for anything? [8:56 PM] Cirevam: It would be great if LRR could read them [8:56 PM] Cyrem: wonder if it can [8:56 PM] Terrev: welp, one of you test that, I should go get food soonish [8:56 PM] Cyrem: I'm busy getting coffee [8:57 PM] Cirevam: I'm busy making mods that will never get used [8:57 PM] Terrev: hmmmm [8:57 PM] Cyrem: @Jobbo its in your hands [8:57 PM] Cirevam: :thinking: [8:58 PM] Jobbo: I'm busying setting up The Room movie night (And then nobody looked into them further. Oops.) Texture filtering (pixel blending) Back in January I noticed texture filtering in LRR was inconsistent, and Cire tracked down what controls it. Look at this minifig, for example - the front of the torso (but not the sides or back) is getting point filtering (think Minecraft), the face is getting bilinear filtering (smoothed out). Another example is the Power Station. The sides have point filtering to get a nice crisp look between "bricks", the front is getting bilinear filtering. And the stripes are getting point filtering. Maybe they had their reasons for these choices, but it looks a bit odd to me. I attempted changing it, which worked!... Kinda. All the surfaces in the lwo that I didn't touch broke, somehow. Oh well. Cire explained what had happened (something about garbage data) but whatevs, I didn't care to poke at it much more. Here's the surface settings that control it, with the sides and front of the vanilla Power Station for an example. I'm unsure if the "texture antialiasing" option is used by LRR, but "pixel blending" is. Also note that Lightwave/the modeler seems to render models in its viewport ignoring the pixel blending settings for surfaces. Instead it changes how it renders textures based on distance, for whatever reason. It doesn't affect the models of course; just don't be surprised when they don't look like you'd expect within the modeler. Controlling usage of the shared folder More from December and January (all of this is, actually). This post is already lengthy so I'll cut to the chase, important parts in yellow. [9:08 PM] Terrev: is there anything in the LWS files that reference the shared folders [9:09 PM] Cirevam: The filepath of the model, but exporting the file again makes it lose that somehow [5:18 PM] Terrev: LWS files are plain text, and looking at Big_teleport.lws I'm seeing two types of file paths [5:18 PM] Terrev: Z:\Lego\Data\Buildings\BIGTeleport\TP_SideSlab.lwo and \\Mother\lego\Meshes\Lowpoly\Buildings\Big_Teleports\Teleport.lwo [5:19 PM] Terrev: maybe if the path is relative it looks in shared? [5:20 PM] Terrev: I'd been toying with the idea of making a tool to automatically patch LWO and LWS files with paths to your own working LRR directory [5:20 PM] Terrev: to make loading with lightwave less of a hassle [5:21 PM] Terrev: LWS files would be easy enough but I'm scared to touch the binary LWOs lol [7:48 PM] Cirevam: I think I know how to make it point to Shared but it involves manually editing links in the LWS file to point to the imaginary locations that the devs used [7:48 PM] Terrev: hmm if the file paths in LWS files work like I think they might, you could make a little tool to automatically point them towards any world\shared files that exist there [7:48 PM] Cirevam: They look like LoadObject E:\LEGO Media\Lego Rock Raiders\Data\Buildings\ToolStation\SchneiderCS.lwo [7:49 PM] Cirevam: BIGTeleport's animations have links like LoadObject \Mother\lego\Meshes\Lowpoly\Buildings\Big_Teleports\Teleport.lwo [7:49 PM] Cirevam: \\Mother is obviously not a valid location [7:49 PM] Terrev: I think I literally posted that exact path in this channel a little ways up haha [7:50 PM] Terrev: I wonder if it's just the "does it start with a path to a drive or just \\" part that matters [7:51 PM] Terrev: and not the actual path beyond that [7:51 PM] Cirevam: Testing [7:51 PM] Cirevam: LoadObject \\Teleport.lwo This will surely work [7:57 PM] Cirevam: Hooray, the game doesn't care what the path is [7:58 PM] Cirevam: I will try to replace it with a different model just to make sure [8:02 PM] Cirevam: Looks like we're good to go! \\objectname.lwo will force the game to look in World\Shared [8:04 PM] PWNZOR: Will it still default to the local folder? [8:05 PM] Cirevam: No, I changed Teleport.lwo to Bigwheel.lwo and the game loaded it [8:05 PM] Terrev: [galaxy brain] put everything inside world\shared [8:05 PM] PWNZOR: plz no [8:05 PM] Cirevam: PLZ YES [8:05 PM] Cirevam: This knowledge will save me dozens of MB [8:07 PM] Cirevam: But really, the animated teleport beam effect I'm using is 8.06 MB and I duplicated it for each ship that's using it [8:07 PM] PWNZOR: e.e that's huge man [8:08 PM] Cirevam: 64 512x256 pixel 8-bit bitmaps

Due to the fact that this model was never optimized, it produces a tremendous amount of lag. I strongly advise against using this for that reason. Hopefully we'll see a new HP Power Station in the future that doesn't cause as many problems as this one does. And I can confirm William will not be returning to RRU. Told me in a PM when I was asking about some stuff he did.