Quick Tip: 'Sandbox Mode' (Unlimited Building) in Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 [Steps with Screenshots]

I had picked up Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 again over The Holidays during a sale at STEAM and I already saw some people in the Steam Forum ("Discussions") asking if there was a 'Sandbox Mode' - which is a way to play with either 'Unlimited Money' or 'Free Building' - so I wanted to quickly share a Quick Tip about playing RCT2 in a "Sandbox Mode", as in, 'Unlimited Money' and/or 'Free Building'...

While RCT2 has a 'hard limit' on buildings [128 rides as I understand - but I have not personally tested this], it does have a way to 'create a Sandbox Mode' - where you can build as much as you want, not limited by money - by making your own Scenario...

If you press on the "Game Tools" Toolbox at the Main Menu (initial startup menu, with the four large buttons to click on, at the bottom) and choose the "Scenario Editor" from the pull-down menu, you can create your own Scenario ("park level/map").

After setting up things like available Rides, Land and initial layout, you can choose for the Scenario to use "No Money" (a checkbox, later in the process), which is an option that effectively disables finances (and thus the need for money to build, etc), making everything 'free' when you go back and Play that Scenario.

There are also 'Trainers' you can run (which are small programs that run in the background of the game, that let you alter Money, let you bypass other normal limits of the game, etc.. [I haven't used these in a while, but have done so in the past - as always, I mention a quick caution about trying these out, as although there are many, many Trainers and programs out there that are designed by helpful people and even whole communities, there is always a non-zero chance that there might be malicious software thrown in the bunch]); if you don't feel comfortable doing that (downloading a file from somewhere unknown and running it), the above seems to be the closest RCT2 gets to a true 'Sandbox Mode' that I saw, at the moment.


Have fun with it!




Personal Version/Log

I had typed this up the other day and have recently been feeling like I have been 'fighting something' (an incoming cold/etc) so wanted to try finally finish it and quickly get it posted - so there are no Graphics/Screenshots at this time, sorry. I have taken a couple and may return here to add some in....Soon™

Edit: I have now added in the Screenshots, showing some of the steps for clarification, as well as a Header graphic. Enjoy!

And More: How to record with H.264/AVC/x264/x264vfw (MPEG-4 Part 10) so that your video clips will open in Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere (Short Tutorial/Example Video)

Originally created to show an example of what to change so that your game recordings using the H.264/AVC/x264/x264vfw (MPEG-4 Part 10) codec will open up in Vegas, this also works for Premiere, Lightworks and other NLE's (Non-Linear Editors), for those who were having problems editing.

In this example*, I am recording with an x264vfw (Komisar's Unofficial, Black Logo) interface**, which sets up h.264/AVC encoding, used as an "External Codec" in Bandicam:

*Just a silly version of the video, sorry for taking up your time with this little joke

Summary of Video: Within the x264 Video For Windows interface, change the FourCC code that x264 is recording with [think of it as the 'UPC label' or 'QR tag' for the videos] to a code that these video editing apps can recognize natively. That's all.

Now, you should be able to import all your future game recordings into Vegas and Premiere without problem...

Ok, for a truly easy-to-follow video, that shows examples of how to set the code for Bandicam, Dxtory and Afterburner, look no further than here:

The true version of the video, showing how to adjust the setting required

As you can see, because the main setting to change occurs within the x264vfw interface itself, this change can be utilized no matter what game recording program you prefer to record with (Bandicam, Dxtory, MSI Afterburner, etc.)


**If you are using the 'Official' version of the x264vfw codec interface (Red Logo), the setting to change is indicated in this screenshot below:

»» Note: 
When editing the x264vfw codec with NLEs (Non-Linear Editors) such as Sony's Vegas line of products and Adobe's Premiere applications, you may experience artifacts such as 'trails' or 'corruption' unless you set the GOP setting to "1", which will make "Intra-frame only" encodes. This will encode frames that do not depend on surrounding frames, containing all necessary data within each frame itself (similar to how the MJPEG codec operates, requiring more bitrate/filesize, but MPEG-4 still uses less bitrate overall), which alleviates this problem.

This seems to only occur with Vegas, Premiere, Lightworks and similar products when using MPEG4, but does not occur with most other video editing applications (tested with Windows Movie Maker, CyberLink's PowerDirector, Nero Video, Avidemux, VirtualDub, etc), so you could always extract the portions of the video you want from your recordings with those, then import your portions into Vegas/Premiere/etc and finalize your video projects that way. However, to omit having to do that extra step, you can have your H.264/AVC (x264) recordings editable in Vegas/Premiere/etc by doing the following:

For the Official (Red Logo) x264vfw interface, add "--keyint 1" (without quotations) into the Extra Command area at the bottom
For The Unofficial (Black Logo) x264vfw interface, set the Maximum GO Size to "1"


***
A lengthy article, talking about recording with x264/H.264/AVC in detail (testing settings, recommendations for speed, etc.) can be found at the blog here:
http://gametipsandmore.blogspot.ca/2013/05/game-recording-with-mpeg-4-using.html

***

Have fun editing and See You In The Games!