Mario Kart 64 Hacking General Discussion

[Drew Weatherton]

This looks amazing. I can't wait to use it MagiKoopa!

Question, are the tire animations random?

[MA1989]

I've been following this for about 6 months now. This is excellent work, and I cant wait to start racing on some new tracks.

I have a idea/question. Is the game capable of 3/4 player GP mode? could it be enabled, or has this been left out because its too much to process?

[mib_f8sm9c]

Drew: I'm still figuring out the tires. My current theory is that each frame of the animation has 4 different wheel palettes to simulate the wheels moving. They're definitely not random, but I haven't had the time to figure out how it works yet. BTW I'm going to throw out a version of Pitstop either tonight or tomorrow that will be the first alpha test for the character importer, you seem like you're ready to pounce on it so let me know if you need any help with it.

MA1989: No idea, sorry. I imagine it's too much to process for the N64, but I imagine that if someone was able to hack 2-p mode into Super Mario 64, then it would be possible to have 3/4-p GP mode in MK64, though making it work on the actual hardware will probably never happen.

EDIT: Oooh, new subforum! I'll make a new thread for the Pitstop release when I finish it.

[mib_f8sm9c]

Sorry for the double post, I'm just pretty excited. The tool is working exactly as I'd hoped, allowing for importing characters. Here I imported a series of 6 numbers to stand in for the animations, and it seems to work exactly as intended.



Even better, you can save a project file that will retain all your imported character information, so you can go back and tweak it if necessary. There's still a few missing pieces, like profile pics, names, shadows, sound effects, etc, but this is a good first step for sure. New thread should be going up with the alpha version sometime tomorrow.

[Drew Weatherton]

@mib_f8sm9c Okay, now you're just teasing me fantastic work here, I've been hoping for something like this for over a decade (when I first modeled Magikoopa in 3DS MAX). Your progress is amazing.

@MA1989 you can force mode and number of players but if you force GP to four players it fails to load. I'm sure it would be possible to make it work but it will require a reasonably substantial hack, I think. In discussing possibilities with abitalive, I think one of the best options would be to add CPUs as simulants to versus mode (sort of like how you can add CPUs to a smash bros. match or a Perfect Dark combat simulator).

[Captain Buggy]

Are these textures patched to the rom? Does this require a special rom or can we do this manually our selfs too?

[MA1989]

@Drew_Weatherton Yeah I figured 3/4p gp mode would fail to load when forced. Maybe because the game doesn't know where to position the 3rd and 4th players on the initial starting grid. Plus its probably too much for the N64 to handle. Anyway CPU in vs mode would be another great modification. I used a similar hack on goldeneye made by SubDrag, which added CPU to multiplayer mode, it was great.

[Yoshimaster96]

How does the LOD stuff work in this game?

[Captain Buggy]

[TheSolipsistOwl]

Fantastic work, everyone.

A Mario Kart 64 editor or otherwise new tracks have been something I've searched every year in vain, so it's exciting to see so much accomplished in such a brief time. I look forward to seeing the momentum of everyone coming together bringing this to new heights.

After all, the Mario Kart community in general is very much alive. Even the original Mario Kart for the SNES has a strong international following. The legacy of this game guarantees a lot of interest and support.