# The Ultimate Stunts track editor (ustuntstrackedit)

### Introduction

The Ultimate Stunts track editor will allow you to make new tracks and edit existing tracks. Currently (version 0.6.2) this is not yet possible, but it is possible to view existing tracks, and to import tracks from the original Stunts game.

### Usage

Currently, the user interface is still quite simple. In the main window, there is a 3D view of the track, the name of the track on top of it, and a menu on the left. The menu can be used with the mouse. In the 3D view, the position of the camera can be changed with the arrow keys and the PgUp/PgDn keys.

### Importing Stunts tracks

One of the options in the track editor menu is to import a track from the original "Stunts" (4D Sports Driving) game. The first thing you have to do is to enter the directory where the Stunts tracks are. This is an absolute path, so it is not relative to the Ultimate Stunts data dir. The "." directory is the directory from where the track editor is started. In the future, this question will probably be replaced with a more user-friendly directory browser. After you selected the right directory, you can just click on a track file, and it will be imported.

### Configuring the Stunts import function

The Stunts import function can be configured by modifying a file that is located in the Ultimate Stunts data directory: misc/trackedit.conf. In this configuration file, almost the entire track import process can be customized with the variables in the [trkimport] section. This import process has the following steps:

##### 1: Load a template track

Ultimate Stunts loads an ordinary Ultimate Stunts track file, which will act as a starting point for the converted track. This track will be modified later depending on the contents of the .trk file. The filename of this template track can be set with the templatefile variable, for instance:

    templatefile = misc/trackedit.template

The template track has to be at least 30*30 tiles wide and long, and at least 2 tiles high, or more, depending on the configuration of the rest of the import process. All the tiles and textures that will ever be used in the rest of the process should be present in the template track. The initial state of the tiles should be a flat, horizontal ground.

##### 2: Load the terrain

next, the terrain and tile item bytes in the .trk file are processed. All the byte values here are hexadecimal values, but without the usual 0x prefix. What happens here, depends first on the terrain:

- If the terrain byte is 00 (flat ground), only the item byte is processed
- If the terrain byte is is between (including) 01 and 05 (water), then first a water tile is placed by processing the terrain byte, and then the item byte is processed.
- If the terrain byte is 06 (high flat ground), then the item byte is processed, and afterwards the tile height is increased.
- If the terrain byte is between (including) 07 and 0a (diagonal ground), then a tile is placed depending on the combination of terrain and tile byte
- For other tiles, only the terrain byte is processed (on other tiles a Stunts track never has any item

When a terrain byte with the hexadecimal value xy is processed, it is done according to the variable terrain_xy in the conf file. When an item byte with the value pq is processed, it is done according to the variable tile_pq. Finally, for the terrain bytes between 07 and 0a, processing a combination of terrain byte xy and item byte pq is done according to the variable terrain_xy_pq.

All values of the variables terrain_xy, terrain_xy_pq and tile_pq have the same format. This value contains zero or more units of the following form:

    x,y,z:tileID/rotation/altitude;

Every of these units causes one tile to be changed. The values x,y,z tell which tile will be changed. tileID/rotation/altitude are the new settings of the tile, with the same meaning as the three values in the track file format. x,y and z are a position relative to the tile that is being processed. x and y are the relative horizontal position in the track, and z is the layer in the track (the vertical position). So, 0,0,0 is the lowest tile on the processed position, 0,0,1 is the second-layer tile on that position, etc.. Positions like 1,0,0 or 0,1,2 are outside the tile that is being processed, but changing them is allowed to support for large tiles.

The "large tile" item values fd, fe and ff are not processed.