Algorithms: Skidmarks-style racing games

[TikTok]

I hope this is the right forum for this...

I was mucking around with Amiga Format's Skidmarks demo yesterday and I noticed the track was saved as a big IFF file on disk. This got me thinking as to how such a game would be implemented...particularly certain aspects, such as the bumps in the track and the ramps that make vehicles fly.

I was trying to work out if the bitmap was created first (perhaps by hand) and then the track data (boundaries etc) was calculated from that- perhaps by colour - white marks the edge of the track or such like. On the other hand that seems a complicated and quite difficult task. Does anyone have an idea how this type of game is created? I'm just looking for an insight, not code

[Ultron]

I'm guessing it'd be a two dimensional array (x,y) with height,inclination, and type: collision, water, friction, mud, etc. Isometric to boot.

Their gfx looks 3d generated though. The terrain might be fractal generated.

[eLowar]

Just took a quick look at the first review I found on AMR:

Originally Posted by CU Amiga (Feb 1994)

Each car is made up of 800 sprites (32 rotations with five elevations and five pitches), all rendered in Imagine 2, [...]

So I would guess the terrain is likewise pre-rendered and there's (as Ultron suggested) some extra data stored somewhere for each place on the map, which is needed to pick the right sprite and determine how the car moves.