Game objects (GameObjs.xml)

Gameplay refers to places in the world by name: an estate entrance, a discount board, a speed camera, a barn find. Their positions are not in the placement files but in GameObjs.xml, one per track at Ribbon_00\GameObjs.xml and one for the open world at Stripped\gs\<track>\gameobjs.xml. The install holds three: the Tokyo track’s, the open world’s and the home space’s. Proven

Layout

A UTF-8 file with a byte order mark and an XML declaration (version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"), with this structure in all three files and no other element or attribute in any. Proven

<GameObjs>
  <GameObjectLocators />
  <Objs>
    <Obj GameplayID="ESTATE_ENTRANCE_13">
      <Pos value="-2015.0108642578125,113.67074584960938,2481.716552734375" />
      <Orientation>
        <XAxis value="0.16,0.026,0.987" />
        <YAxis value="-0.004,0.9997,-0.026" />
        <ZAxis value="-0.987,0,0.16" />
      </Orientation>
    </Obj>
  </Objs>
</GameObjs>

• GameObjectLocators is empty in all three files. Proven Whether it can hold anything is unknown.
• Obj has GameplayID; the open world’s file also gives every object a Guid (a lower-case GUID), and the track’s gives none. Proven
• Pos, XAxis, YAxis and ZAxis each have one value attribute: three decimal numbers separated by commas, with E exponents where small (-8.742277657347586E-08). Proven
• The numbers were written by more than one program: some are the shortest text of a single-precision float (-1792.549), others carry 15 digits of one (101.982322692871), others 17 (113.67074584960938, the double of a float). Read as the nearest float, they are the values the game holds. Observed
• The track’s file has 793 objects with 793 distinct ids; the open world’s has 59 objects with 45 distinct ids; the home space’s has none. Proven

What the objects are

By the first word of the id, the track’s 793 objects are DISCOUNT 203 (boards: DISCOUNT_BOARD_XP_A/B/C, 100, 75 and 25, and 3 TREASURE_CHEST), MASCOTS 200 (MASCOTS_REGION), SPEEDCAMERAZONE 120, DRIFTZONEMARKER 80, SPEEDCAMERA 60, TRAILBLAZER 48, ESTATE 37 (ESTATE_ENTRANCE_N), ANIM 26 (ANIM_CM_E0001_Ambient_HighSpeedTrain_Carriage and its kin), BARN 17, STADIUM 1 and TAXIJOB 1. The open world’s 59 are BARN 28 (BARN_FIND_INTERIOR_<car>, two each), DISCOUNT 16 (all TREASURE_CHEST), GarageInteriorWall 4, 3003/3013 3 each, SPEEDCAMERA 2 and one each of GarageInteriorFloor, Roof and Grid. Observed 27 of the track’s objects stand at (0, 0, 0): all 26 ANIM objects and STADIUM_FLOOR. Observed

Orientation

Each axis is a unit vector: over all 852 objects of the three files an axis is within 4.6e-6 of unit length and two axes of one object are within 1.2e-7 of orthogonal. Proven Which of them are the rows and which the columns of the object’s rotation is not established. Unknown

What refers to a game object?

The ids look like the gameplay tags of .pgeo headers and of the .pvs gameplay records (BARN_FIND_..., TAXIJOB), but no file read so far links an object here to a placement by anything but the name.