HD Truck Pack Beta 5 by Cale
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4/23/2017 - CHANGES FROM BETA 4:

*Added Bigfoot Cruiser, Predator, and Equalizer - this completes the truck roster.
*Grave Digger and Nitemare now use 64x64 textures for shocks.

4/23/2017 - CHANGES FROM BETA 3:

*Added Bulldozer, Rampage, Black Stallion 2000, Samson, and Nitemare.
*Trucks now have proper headers depending on the truck.

1/6/2017 - CHANGES FROM BETA 2:

*Added Power Wheels, Overkill, Executioner, and Boogey Van
*Remapped parts of Snake Bite, Grave Digger, and Monster Patrol to reduce 256x256 texture usage.  No truck currently uses more than 4 256x256 textures.
*Minor graphical fixes on other trucks

11/20/2016 - CHANGES FROM BETA 1:

*Added Wildfoot and Monster Patrol
*Fixed Grave Digger handling (tires were in the wrong location, should be better now)
*Changed Grave Digger 7's name to just Grave Digger
*Lowered most trucks a few inches for a more realistic stance.

OTHER NOTES

One final beta. This includes all of the trucks I intend to release with this pack. Still some graphical fixes and whatnot to come.

Please run with "Hear Commentary" set to OFF, Equalizer's audio worked on its own but is causing an error with the rest of the field.

Due to these trucks using further 256x256 textures, stuttering may occur when 8 trucks are running. 

Some scratch points on the newer trucks are not properly set yet.

Mount HDBeta5.pod ABOVE truck2.pod to put all of the HD trucks first in the opponent selection window.

This doesn't really affect gameplay, but these trucks appear slightly overscale compared to the stock trucks.  This is to make them better scaled to the actual monster trucks, which have slightly less chunky proportions in reality.

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PRIOR NOTES:

WHAT IS THIS?

This pack of 21 (!) trucks is another step in my quest to upgrade MTM 2's truck roster to be more colorful and more accurate to the real life trucks which the stock trucks are modeled after. Each of the trucks included has been rebuilt from the ground up with new models and new textures to achieve this goal while still keeping trucks under the 1000 vert limit.

HOW DID YOU DO THIS?

The trucks are, what I guess would be called in vintage MTM 2 parlance, "semi-fiberglass", meaning the bodies have wheel wells with 3D modeled shocks, but the chassis are still primarily solid objects with textures conveying the framework.

WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

Two reasons. First, I've never been satisfied with how the stock trucks look in the game, in the best cases the colors are too dull, in some of the worst cases (Grave Digger) the model does a poor job of conveying the actual shape of the trucks. Secondly, I wanted to brighten up the game to make it more like MTM 1, which had inaccurately modeled trucks but brighter colors that make an impact.  I also wanted to make sure these trucks were playable on older systems - full 3D frames look fantastic, but can drive vert counts well over 1000 and cause graphical issues with the game.  With the stock tracks, you should be able to play these trucks with full graphics settings on, no issues.

SO TELL ME MORE ABOUT WHAT'S IN HERE AND WHAT'S TO COME.

HDBeta5.pod is all 21 trucks that will be in the final pack. These are BETA and may have small visual issues. Currently, the trucks are using the stock axles, but I have plans in the future to do a new standard axle.  All of the trucks have lights and use stock commentary files.  They appear in truck lists without any signifier from the stock trucks, so make sure you pay attention to which trucks you are selecting.  If you mount the pod above truck2.pod in pod.ini, the trucks should be the first ones listed in the Opponent selection screen.

Trucks in the pack include:
Bear Foot
Bigfoot
Bigfoot Cruiser
Black Stallion 2000
Bulldozer
Boogey Van
Carolina Crusher
Equalizer
Executioner
Firestone Wilderness
Grave Digger
Monster Patrol
Nitemare
Overkill
Power Wheels
Predator
Rampage
Samson
Snake Bite
Wildfoot

I also plan on doing a few trucks which the game did not include, as well as MTM 1 versions of the trucks, to make a sort of mid-90s pack.

WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG?

Because I have a job, a wife, and other things going on! Plus, I find the initial mapping stages tedious, so my motivation wanes at times.

CAN I HELP?

I'm reluctant to pass of some of the work to others as part of my goal is to have all the trucks have a consistent look, like one person made all of them.  However, if you have high resolution photos of any of the MTM 2 stock trucks from 1997-1998, I would love to see them! I'm finding some of these trucks were not as well documented as I would have liked. Also, if you find anything broken on these trucks, let me know! I can be found on the mtm2.com forum as Cale.

Thank you for Downloading!

-Cale Putnam

