by Dieter C. Serowy <DCSWY@aol.com>
Jips are obviously bitmaps which are used in Geoff Crammonds GP3 for mapping some textures on the road, e.g. lines, arrows, etc.
In the days of GP2 you could easily change the road-surface with this command. You still can do it in GP3, but the result will be mostly disappointing: There won't be any more marks left on the road-surface from hard breaking or accelarating. And the worst thing: As soon as the wheather in your game is not clear and sunny, you will recognize an ugly mirror-effect on the road. (Example: Donington Park).
Yes. It seems that there are some special commands included to the original-jam id 837 used for the road-surface. You can change the texture of the jam though, it is located in the TechJam-Folders and named tarmacmap.bmp/ v3tarmacmap.bmp. But be aware of the fact that this will change the road-surface for all circuits you will use. So back up the original-bmp!
The jips are all located in a separate directory called Gamejips. In GP3 you will find three jips there: Gridline, Gridleft and Arm64. In GP3-2000 there is a fourth jip to be found in the Gamejip-directory called Yardbrk5.
You will need e.g. "Jam Editor" made by Mal Ross (http://www.grandprix-x.com/opensrc/projects/jameditor.html)
to have a look at the jips.
Actually any editor for "software mode jams" will do the job basically.
When you open a jip in the Jam Editor you will recognize that the jip looks somewhat different from ordinary jams. For example "Arm64": You will see one texture (id: 804) that is repeated several times in different sizes underneath. If you click on the texture, you will be able to export and import bmps. But this won't change the repeated textures underneath. They are stored in the "canvas" which you can export or import from the jip.
Yes, otherwise we will not achieve a nice looking result.
As I already mentioned, we will be facing difficulties trying to have different road-surfaces in one track if we use the 0xe9-Command. But a lot of tracks do feature different tarmac or concrete. So my aim was to achieve this effect. That's why I started working on jips. For results have a look at Airfield Diepholz or Autodrome Linas-Montlhery. In the Diepholz-track you will find two jips used for road-surface and one jip used for mapping the number "08" on the track. So we have the possibility to change the colour of the road-surface or put numbers or even names on the tarmac with the use of jips.
Well, I just can say what I have noticed actually :-)
The jips are drawn on the surface, but the surface itself is still visible. Sounds
weird, but I have tried a different tarmac-bmp once (kobblestones) and the kobblestones
where still visible underneath the jip-markings.
Remember the canvas? The repeated bmps are needed for drawing the jips from a distance.
GP3 changes the resolution of the jip depending on how far away you are. This is
the reason why we need to change the canvas. The original-sized bmp in the jip is
just used for a very limited section in front of your car. This is important to know
if you want to create a new road-surface.
It seems that only very few colours can be used in jips. I actually use only colours that are taken from original-jips. And it works. All my other attempts failed. But I am not too much into this stuff and do not know exactly if you can convert other colours to fit in a jip. If you know better than me, please let me know. But at least we have a variety of grey and some yellow for the jips.
It did not work for me to create a new jip which was not based on a original-one. This means: You can take one of the original jips and modify it (e.g. new id-no, new canvas, new bmp, delete some bmps) but don't modify the size of the bmps. Let's say: If the size is 256/32, it has to be 256/32. Anything else does not seem to work.
Let's say: You want to honour the all-time-great Geoff Crammond and want to put his name in big letters on the road, just before start/finish. I recommand to download the basis-big.jip from this site. Here you have two working colours in one bmp: white and grey. Open it in the Jam Editor and click right on the biggest bmp. Export the texture. Now you can modify the bmp with your favourite picture-programm, e.g. Photoshop. But be careful not to change the used colours and the size yet. If you have a bmp which features the word "GEOFF" in the right way, save it and import the texture into your jip. Now back to Photoshop (or whatever), reduce the size from 256/32 to 128/16, save it and import it into the second biggest texture of your jip. And so on, untill you have substituted all the old bmps. Then you have to save the jip, maybe let's call it geoff.jip :-)
Now you have to export the canvas and save it. Go back to Jam Editor, open Geoff.jip and delete all textures except the big one. Then import the canvas. Take a look if your new jip has a valid id-no. If so, just save. Ready!
DO NOT ADD your jip in your HardwareJams-Directory. It will only cause the game to crash. You will have to create a custom-directory in your GP3jams-directory. Then you can import the jip in your track. Open the Track Editor and go to the Jam-Files. You can insert the jip exactly like you would insert a jam. If you open the directory where you have placed the jip in, do not get confused if you can not seem to find it. The Track Editor will usually only show jams, but you can find your jip if you say "Show all" while trying to insert the new file.
You will have to get used to the command 0xe8. Please look at the Command Library by Addie Walti for further information. And look at the original-GP3-tracks or Diepholz to find out yourself.
We will not be able to extend the size of a single jip on the road. Maybe you will be disappointed to see your name or number on the track-surface, because you would have expected it to be bigger. But if we want to have real big letters on our road, we can create three or more jips and place them closely together. Example: Geoff.jip has the original-size of 256/32. Create a new bmp (size 256/96). Make sure that you are using the original-colours. Place the letters in the bmp and then devide the bmp in three pieces to get three 256/32-Parts. Then you can create three jips in the way it is descriped above. When you place the jips close together on your track, they will fit perfectly to one big word.