Burnout 3 Rendering Flags

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MattKC
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Burnout 3 Rendering Flags

Post by MattKC »

I'm sure this isn't an original discovery, but I couldn't find any published details about it, so I figured I'd document it for archival purposes anyway.

Burnout 3 has an array of drawing flags allowing you to toggle on/off certain parts of the 3D world. This array can be found at the following memory offsets:

Code: Select all

PS2 Prototype (NTSC-U 2004-06-08): 0x5B5590
PS2 Retail (NTSC-U): 0x665F1C
Xbox Retail (NTSC-U): 0x4D61C4
From that offset, this appears to be what each entry actually does. To toggle these, you'll need access to a debugger (or some other way to manipulate memory at runtime):

Code: Select all

0 - Car Position Markers
1 - Backplate/landscape/far scenery
2 - Wrong way walls
3 - Track
4 - Track reflections
5 - Mid-level scenery/props
6 - Mid-scenery reflections
7 - Cones/near scenery/small props
8 - ??? (disabled by default, could be near scenery reflections but unclear)
9 - Traffic lights/traffic
10 - Vehicles themselves
11 - Vehicle shadows
12 - Bloom/light trails
13 - Fog
14 - Motion blur
15 - HUD
16 - Particles
Here's a video of me messing around with some of the flags:


finna get a Trackless% speedrun :triumph:
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TheGoat62
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Re: Burnout 3 Rendering Flags

Post by TheGoat62 »

12 is actually bloom/trails:
Burnout 3 - Takedown_SLUS-21050_20230126132914.png
Burnout 3 - Takedown_SLUS-21050_20230126132954.png
Burnout 3 - Takedown_SLUS-21050_20230126133021.png
Burnout 3 - Takedown_SLUS-21050_20230126133030.png
(look at the road and sun)


I think these flags are already known and was used for improving performance by toggling them off.

8 is turned off by default so no idea what it was.
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CrabHead
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Re: Burnout 3 Rendering Flags

Post by CrabHead »

These are known, in fact very well known ( i have them in my pnach post )
KEKW Goin' Flipmode!
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TheGoat62
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Re: Burnout 3 Rendering Flags

Post by TheGoat62 »

it is, but it is good that its actually being documented, also while messing around with these, turning off the particles will also disable the flash effect when doing a signature takedown and will make the game softlock after the timer runs out in crash mode until u turn it back on again.
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MattKC
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Re: Burnout 3 Rendering Flags

Post by MattKC »

TheGoat62 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 5:54 am 12 is actually bloom/trails:
Thanks, I've added that to the post.

Yeah I was pretty confident these were already known, especially knowing there were "performances fix" cheats, but still I figured documenting them more thoroughly couldn't hurt.
TheGoat62 wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:59 pm also while messing around with these, turning off the particles will also disable the flash effect when doing a signature takedown and will make the game softlock after the timer runs out in crash mode until u turn it back on again.
Huh, that's interesting. Sounds like it might be waiting for some kind of animation to finish that doesn't if that flag is off?
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