Hacking MK8 N64 Rainbow Road [Interesting]

[TotalInsanity4]

Background: Most of you probably know that MK8 did a wonderful job of remastering n64's rainbow road. Some of you also may have noticed that Nintendo tried to sort of make a callback to Mario Kart Double Dash with this stage by trying to give the appearance of a connected world that you can kind of make out if you're looking for the right things (for instance, the Statue of Peach of Liberty, various towers from Toads Turnpike, what looks like it could be Peach's Castle, etc.)

Before I looked into the model, I fully expected the city below the course to be some sort of hybrid of textures and very crude 3D models to save space. What I DIDN'T expect was a nearly fully modeled cityscape to be just sitting underneath Rainbow Road.

Spoiler: Large image thumbnail gallery

I certainly don't have the skills to create a custom track, but with caffiine, a 3D modeling program and some elbow grease, this could very feasibly be an easy conversion for replacement

 

[Reecey]

Wow, very interesting they really did go to town on it, literally! How did you find all this out what did you use? you can just see in the background Rainbow Road, in the last img. on the right hand side.

 

[ric.]

Looks like a prototype Isle Delfino.
Neat discovery!

 

[Reecey]

Looks like a prototype Isle Delfino.
Neat discovery!

I thought I had seen something similar in a game before but could not put my finger on it and then my savoir commented, thanks Its got isle delfino written allover it with the statue in the middle.

 

[CuriousTommy]

Background: Most of you probably know that MK8 did a wonderful job of remastering n64's rainbow road. Some of you also may have noticed that Nintendo tried to sort of make a callback to Mario Kart Double Dash with this stage by trying to give the appearance of a connected world that you can kind of make out if you're looking for the right things (for instance, the Statue of Peach of Liberty, various towers from Toads Turnpike, what looks like it could be Peach's Castle, etc.)

Before I looked into the model, I fully expected the city below the course to be some sort of hybrid of textures and very crude 3D models to save space. What I DIDN'T expect was a nearly fully modeled cityscape to be just sitting underneath Rainbow Road.

Spoiler: Large image thumbnail gallery

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I certainly don't have the skills to create a custom track, but with caffiine, 3D modeling program and some elbow grease, this could very feasibly be an easy conversion for replacement

What did you use to extract the model and textures?

 

[TotalInsanity4]

What did you use to extract the model and textures?

I found them online

Shh don't tell anyone

Wow, very interesting they really did go to town on it, literally! How did you find all this out what did you use? you can just see in the background Rainbow Road, in the last img. on the right hand side.

Look up "VGResource" (it's part of the DYKGaming network) and go from there. Open files in any 3D viewing software (Windows 10 has a decent one built in) or something like Sketchup or Inventor if you want to edit it

 

[Reecey]

I found them online

Shh don't tell anyone

Look up "VGResource" (it's part of the DYKGaming network) and go from there. Open files in any 3D viewing software (Windows 10 has a decent one built in) or something like Sketchup or Inventor if you want to edit it

Thanks I will give that ago and have a look at others but that particular one you choose yes is interesting I must admit. I would think just like you, below, dodgy textures and what not but some work went into that little lot.

 

[A Generic User]

Well, the game was meant to be insanely and unnecessarily detailed, but......an entire city?!

Would it be cool to make a custom track out of the city?

 

[ric.]

I thought I had seen something similar in a game before but could not put my finger on it and then my savoir commented, thanks Its got isle delfino written allover it with the statue in the middle.

Haha, it's the first thing that came to mind.
For reference, here's how Isle Delfino looked in early Super Mario Sunshine footage.

 

[Reecey]

Haha, it's the first thing that came to mind.
For reference, here's how Isle Delfino looked in early Super Mario Sunshine footage.

Fantastic footage, shame the actual game never looked that good not even SM3DWorld on the WiiU does not look that good! You only have to look at how good Mario looks! he never looked that hidef in the general release.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Thanks I will give that ago and have a look at others but that particular one you choose yes is interesting I must admit. I would think just like you, below, dodgy textures and what not but some work went into that little lot.

Honestly, the textures can probably be accounted for by the computer not loading them properly, there were more textures in the course folder than were loaded into 3D builder

Well, the game was meant to be insanely and unnecessarily detailed, but......an entire city?!

Would it be cool to make a custom track out of the city?

My thoughts exactly!

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Actually, on the tangent of trying to figure out what this looks like, it looks weirdly similar (in style, at least) to Wuhu Island of Wii Sports Resort

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Update: City appears to be 100% modeled; any discrepencies in the pictures are just texture errors (gaps between mountains, no ground on bridges, pylons on tower not rendering correctly, etc.) For reference, it's SUPPOSED to look like this (ignore missing section of track, I dunno what's going on there):

Spoiler

I don't know why the extra textures didn't show up on my computer

 

[Reecey]

Update: City appears to be 100% modeled; any discrepencies in the pictures are just texture errors (gaps between mountains, no ground on bridges, pylons on tower not rendering correctly, etc.) For reference, it's SUPPOSED to look like this (ignore missing section of track, I dunno what's going on there):

Spoiler

I don't know why the extra textures didn't show up on my computer

Amazing picture! That's really something you can tell a lot of effort has gone into that. The track just hovers above the city. I'm wondering if the city below is some sort of statement to say for a future Nintendo title? it looks that good. I cannot remember what the track is called in MK8 without looking myself but I suppose its part of the city track as well but a lot more to see of it.

 

[lonemoonHD]

You'll need: MK8 game dump, yaz0dec, TexHaxU, 3DS Max with a .bfres preset (http://goo.gl/ccjdQP)

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First, dump a file from "vol/content/course". Take a .szs file from any course and run "yaz0dec" on it. Then, there should be a .bfres (you'll probably get a .szs 0 rarc file, but it acts the same as a .bfres file). Make a folder called "Track Dump" or whatever.

Now, use "TexHaxU" to extract textures from the .bfres file. Run "extract.bat" and in quotation marks, put in the file name of the .bfres letter for letter. Then run "convertGTX.bat" and wait for the application to finish. Then, go inside "OutDDS_Lossless" and take all the textures from there and put them inside the "Track Dump" folder you made earlier.

Now you need 3DS Max to do the work. Move the .bfres file inside the "Track Dump" folder, then load the file with the preset I linked above.

What should happen now is you getting a colored (non-shaded) model of the course of your choice.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Amazing picture! That's really something you can tell a lot of effort has gone into that. The track just hovers above the city. I'm wondering if the city below is some sort of statement to say for a future Nintendo title? it looks that good. I cannot remember what the track is called in MK8 without looking myself but I suppose its part of the city track as well but a lot more to see of it.

The really interesting thing is that in Super Bell Subway/LingLing Metro there's actually a map of the city showing how Toad Harbor fits into it:

Spoiler: Image from the web

I might actually get on the game later today in a time trial and see if I can make out what all of the annotations say just for the heck of it

 

[Harmonia]

I've already gone through the N64 RR model and felt the same way. I was really surprised.

I've also found the texture file that has that exact map from Super Bell Subway. A lot of the things on the sides are just random generic "brands" you'll find ads for on the tracks. There are quite a few track names here and there but they don't seem to connect properly when you look at the other map that has all the train stops (which I find kinda weird)

It's pretty impossible to read that map in a Time Trial, you're better off searching for the texture file on your computer.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

There are quite a few track names here and there but they don't seem to connect properly when you look at the other map that has all the train stops (which I find kinda weird)

I thought the same thing, yeah. The only thing I can think of is if the train station map isn't an exact map but only a semi-random placement of train stops (which doesn't make sense given both the detail of every other small thing and the fact that it has a compass showing which way is north on it)

 

[lonemoonHD]

I've already gone through the N64 RR model and felt the same way. I was really surprised.

I've also found the texture file that has that exact map from Super Bell Subway. A lot of the things on the sides are just random generic "brands" you'll find ads for on the tracks. There are quite a few track names here and there but they don't seem to connect properly when you look at the other map that has all the train stops (which I find kinda weird)

It's pretty impossible to read that map in a Time Trial, you're better off searching for the texture file on your computer.

Go back to TTing rRRd instead, Harm.

Anyway, in dSSB (Super Bell Subway), there's a lot more interesting things at stake than the map (for example, the radio voice heard at the start of the track is actually German), although if you want the map, here, I dumped it for you.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Go back to TTing rRRd instead, Harm.

Anyway, in dSSB (Super Bell Subway), there's a lot more interesting things at stake than the map (for example, the radio voice heard at the start of the track is actually German), although if you want the map, here, I dumped it for you.

Oh sweet! Any way you could give us a more zoomed in screenshot of the top-down map?