Thirty-eight cards in one run is a lot to read. The first letter of a vehicle's two-letter art code is the hull the game actually draws it with, and the console's class names are subdivisions of those five - Bull and Roadblock are both 'b', Bug and Skeeter both 's' - so grouping by the letter keeps kin together whatever the console called them. Particles 6, Bugs 10, Mules 9, Bulls 8, Police 5, which is all of them. The build prints a warning if any vehicle falls outside the five, so a new hull cannot go missing from the page quietly. The tabs compose with the armament filter and the search box rather than replacing them.
Regenerating the reference pages
docs/vtv-presets.html and docs/tracks.html are generated from
assets/RP411/RPL4.RES, the gauge config, and the console's RPConfig.xml.
Both are committed, so this is only needed when the resource file changes.
Both need a resource listing from the original tool, which is the authority for resource ids — the directory can be walked in file order, but the ids have holes (this file leaves 53 and 56 unassigned) so the walk has to be aligned against the listing:
Release\RPL4TOOL.exe -l assets\RP411\RPL4.RES > listing.txt # ends in _getch(); close it
python tools\pages\extract_presets.py vtv.json listing.txt
python tools\pages\build_page.py vtv.json docs\vtv-presets.html
python tools\pages\build_tracks.py listing.txt docs\tracks.html
RPL4TOOL finishes with _getch() (RP_L4/RPL4TOOL.cpp), so with stdout
redirected it writes the whole listing and then waits for a keypress —
close it once the file stops growing.
What each reads
| script | reads | writes |
|---|---|---|
extract_presets.py |
RES, L4GAUGE.CFG, tools/console-config/RPConfig.xml, listing |
vtv.json |
build_page.py |
vtv.json, GAUGE/s*.pcc silhouettes |
docs/vtv-presets.html |
build_tracks.py |
RES, listing, RPConfig.xml, RPL4FE.cpp catalogs, tracks.css/js/tpl |
docs/tracks.html |
build_tracks.py reads the front end's own kMaps / kFootballMaps arrays
so the page cannot claim a track is offered when the menu does not offer it.
Two formats worth knowing
Control mappings. A vehicle's ControlsMappings List holds the resource
ids of its L4 and Thrustmaster streams. Streams are named plainly, so
there is nothing in a stream saying whose it is — resolve by id, never by
which vehicle name sits nearest in the file. Records are 24 bytes and carry
their own mode mask; bits 3–8 are ModePreset1..6.
Map instances. 76-byte records: class id at +0, position at +48, unit quaternion at +60. A few records are longer, so resync on an unexpected class id rather than trusting the stride. The quaternion doubles as a checksum — a mis-read almost never produces a unit one.