Possible to create a map out of this game?

[Ross Scott]

I'm sure maybe a grand total of 5 people in the world are interested in this, but I was wondering if it would be possible at all to create a map somehow of the levels from Test Drive 3. Here are some screenshots:

 

 

It may not look like much, but for 1990, this game was kind of mind blowing with open sandbox racing, 3d vector graphics, semi-believable road and landscape design, etc. I'm a geek and like videogame maps, but I don't think it's possible to map this one out without modifying the code. I think it's possible though as someone already hacked the .exe to get extra lives. The game itself has a buillt-in replay and chase cam controls that you can fly around with and look at different angles. Really if the tilt value could just be modified to be able to turn 90 degrees straight down (the farthest it will go is about 45), then that and a stitching program might be all that's needed to map the game out. Unfortunately I don't have knowledge of programming or something like Cheat Engine to know how to do this.

 

The ideal method would be to have an isometric angle render view like I've seen some people do for Minecraft and Doom, but that would probably take a lot more work.

 

 

Here's a link to the game, it's abandonware now:

 

http://www.abandonia.com/en/downloadgame/385

[BTGBullseye]

Yeah, that'd take either a lot of time and work to map this out manually, or a way to decrypt the maps. Hacking it for extra lives is unbelievably easy BTW, but trying to decrypt those old maps would probly take some serious coding knowledge. (which I don't have at this time)

[Ross Scott]

Yeah, that'd take either a lot of time and work to map this out manually, or a way to decrypt the maps. Hacking it for extra lives is unbelievably easy BTW, but trying to decrypt those old maps would probly take some serious coding knowledge. (which I don't have at this time)

Well is changing the maximum tilt angle on the replay camera really so much harder than changing the extra lives value though? Also if you know of forums where people might be more interested in this (I plan to try at vgmaps.com), that might be helpful too.

[BTGBullseye]

None of the other forums I lurk on do old games like this. Newer ones are much easier to do things with, but changing the view angle limits should be fairly easy if you can figure out where in the program the values are limited at. (that's the hard part)

 

Posting on forums like that is a good idea though.

[brian32905]

If anyone is still interested, I bought the original game and I could take a picture with my camera of the map. I don't have a scanner, sorry.

On the map it is shown that there is an oval shaped race track on the first section of the race.

[urammar]

Hey Team,

Its time for a necro.

 

So I want you guys to know, I have spent SOME time on this. As in.. WAY too much time.

 

As of right now I have the ability(sort of) to make the camera(vehicle) fly, and force it to its minimum declination achievable by normally playing the game.

 

This has been achieved by directly forcing memory locations I have discovered the game to use to certain values. I will release a list of memory locations and their function at a later date, when its not 3 am in the morning.

 

However it appears that maximum inclination and declination of the camera may be hard coded into the engine, as I appear unable to force the camera down further, even when forcibly replacing the declination instructions with lower values and write protecting those locations.

Even worse, given how early 3D this game is it may actually simply be a physical limitation of the render engine altogether.

 

Unfortunately, as we do not know how the source files were encoded, we appear unable to extract the games packages. If anyone is good as reverse engineering this sort of thing, that is where I would start.

I CAN tell you that it appears the maps polygons are mapped to an xyz matrix, is my understanding, and from that we could reconstruct the level in a modern engine more suited to the task.

If someone can post the complete matrix I would be happy to build such a thing.

 

Hope is not lost, however, as I am pursuing alternate methods of both forcing the engine to comply, or just getting the data raw for use externally.

 

This was one of my favorite games as a kid, and I love the idea of this challenge. And I share Ross's obsession with game-world maps.

 

This is a plea for help, if anybody has any skills at all that might be useful here, or can get people who might have interested in this project it would be appreciated. I feel like I am frustratingly close, but am hitting a few walls I am simply not skilled in breaching.

 

Anyway, peace out and I will try to keep you guys updated with some progress.

 

-Ben

[urammar]

Yeah, after going through this pretty extensively now, my current thinking is this is either impossible, or greatly above my skill level.

The memory editing route seems like a dead end to me. It IS possible to force an altitude, but not (at least I can't) force the view to go lower than 45 degrees.

 

In saying that, I have a suspicion that the inclination memory location is actually a reference to something else, rather than the final stop. It might even be that they are shifting the entire world, and leaving the vehicle at 0 deg. Its just a little bit too great a challenge for me at this point, with my limited knowledge and free time.

 

For this reason, if any future people with any idea about reverse engineering and/or memory editing come across this message, I ask you to please have an attempt at this. I ALSO ask you to try and find these locations yourself, because I feel I have made a mistake along the line. What I have found simply doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not the best at this, so I think you shouldn't have too much trouble.

 

I did a whole bunch of work on the DATAB.DAT file to try and get something out of it, but all I got was disappointment and much more nicely formatted junk data.

 

So thats it. I think I put in a fair share of work. I failed. Sorry Ross, we are just going to have to pen and paper this one I think.

 

 

 

P.S.

To whoever is reading this.

If you are thinking 'I wish somebody would take this up again', please realise YOU are somebody, and obviously have an interest in this. Go for it, or find somebody you know that might know how, and get them to show you their skills.

[BTGBullseye]

Yeah, after going through this pretty extensively now, my current thinking is this is either impossible, or greatly above my skill level.

The memory editing route seems like a dead end to me. It IS possible to force an altitude, but not (at least I can't) force the view to go lower than 45 degrees.

 

In saying that, I have a suspicion that the inclination memory location is actually a reference to something else, rather than the final stop. It might even be that they are shifting the entire world, and leaving the vehicle at 0 deg. Its just a little bit too great a challenge for me at this point, with my limited knowledge and free time.

 

I did a whole bunch of work on the DATAB.DAT file to try and get something out of it, but all I got was disappointment and much more nicely formatted junk data.

Sounds almost identical to what I've gotten with old games like this... They all seem to be formatted to be impossible to hack successfully with today's systems... 8-bit programs have to be emulated to run on modern 32/64-bit systems, simply because the hardware doesn't have the instruction set required, and results in extreme difficulty in altering the program in any way.

[Presence]

Ironically, in about 20 years it'll probably be feasible to blow up the video frames into images and run them through a stitching program of some kind and assemble a topographical image that way. Technically one could do it right now, but it'd require thousands of hours of labor; kind of cost prohibitive even if one hires someone from a poverty stricken nation.