Tutorial V 2.0 is here! a more complete tutorial of putting your car into BeamNG : ) UPDATE NOTES:In the previous tutorial V1 we hijacked the fullsize vehicle folder, replaced it with our own .dae and renamed the parts of our car with the fullsize naming convention, but doing it this will cause problems if there is an upate to the game. In this version you will create your own vehicle folder and naming convention. This will avoid any update problems : ) Also I will show you how to center the vehicle in Blender and line up the wheels so that the parts don't go all wacky when you drive and turn. By request here is the tutorial to put your car into BeamNG! This method requires that you have a vehicle that is already separated into sections. I will be using Blender 2.70 for this tutorial and assume you are familiar with modeling and the Blender UI. Please download the ExampleCar.dae for this tutorial, the file cannot be opened like a normal blender file you must "import" the file (in the top right grey banner click "view files attached to this thread") if you do already have a car that is in parts then use that for this tutorial, use any name for the car your want but make sure you use that name for the whole tutorial. Tutorial V 2.0: Putting your model in game - the easy way! (kind of cheating) Disclaimer: The only jbeam structures I use are Gabsters since we are permitted to MOD vehicles. Any vehicle that you put in game that uses others creations you must credit the author. Do not use other peoples jbeam with out their permission. This method is a simplistic way to get a car in game and should not be labeled as a finished product it is a MOD. Start So you have finnished modeling you car (or parts of your car) and you want to put it into jbeam? This is for you. The ExmapleCar is already separated into parts, notice the parts in the outliner: these are parts of the car. Click each part of the car and see what lights up in the outliner. Your more detailed vehicle will have the same format, each part will have a name you give it naturally when creating and separating the car. If you don't name your parts then shame on you. Notice that there is no engine, no real need to model one for this example, the game will run the engine jbeam anyway, in fact it will still run any missing parts of the car mesh: seats, tailpipe, brakes etc. a mesh is mostly for us too look at : ) although the game will crash with no mesh at all soo.. Open the ExampleCar into Blender. (The file cannot be opened like a normal blender file you must "import" the file: Go to: - File > Import > "Collada (Default) (.dae)" ExampleCar is already open in Blender. We will open the fullsize.dae for reference. Now open a separate window for blender ( > right click Blender on the start menu > click "Blender.exe - Shortcut") Import the fullsize.dae. from the Vehicles > fullsize folder. Look at the outliner and notice the names of the parts. Select the hood of the fullsize and notice the highlighted name in the outliner fullsize_hood. You are now familiar with the parts of a car in Blender : ) 1. Create a New folder in Vehicles Folder Go to the BeamNG vehicles folder, Create a folder named BoxCar (or name it any name you want but keep using that name througout this tutorial instead of BoxCar) > this is where all the file we need will go. Open the fullsize folder and copy all the .jbeam files into the BoxCar folder. Now download and copy the ExampleCar.dae into the BoxCar Folder. Rename the ExampleCar.dae to BoxCar.dae 2. Rename the Files: What we have to do now is name all the fullsize.jbeam files in the BoxCar folder to BoxCar.jbeam, you must do this for each .jbeam file. 3. Rename the .jbeam files: Select a .jbeam file, rename that file to BoxCar.jbeam. Now before moving onto the next file open the file that you just renamed in notpad. At the top of notepad select Edit > Replace. In the upper window type fullsize, in the lower window type BoxCar, next click replace. This will replace all the names in the file in one fell swoop : ) 4. Rename the car parts in Blender: Now we will name each part of the car to match the naming convention of the fullsize car. Now open the .dae file from the BoxCar folder into Blender (to "import" the file: Go to: - File > Import > "Collada (Default) (.dae)"). Also open the fullsize car into Blender and make sure both the BoxCar blender window and the fullsize Blender window are side-by-side. Start renaming the Parts of the BoxCar in the Blender outliner to the same naming convention of the parts in the fullsize Blender outliner. Each part you rename will carry the a different heading name but keep the same part name like this: Fullsize_hood = BoxCar_hood = (right) notice its the same case. Fullsize_hood = BOXCAR_HOOD = (wrong) notice its upper case. notice that the heading (fullsize) has been changed to (BoxCar) but the part name (_door) remains the same. You must use the same case. Do this for all the parts of the BoxCar. FOR TIRES. This part is tricky since most cars in Blender have multiple tires. Most cars have more then tire type in the dae file. Figure out what tires are the default tires for the car. You have to name each tire on your car a different tire name that you find in that cars Blender outliner and see wich one shows up in BeamNG, then that is the tire name you use. (I did it for you) Go back to the BoxCar Blender window and select the driver side front tire (Tire 1), the fullsize has 3 sets of tires for each side, for the drivers side front there is: steelwheel_01a_15x9_FL and wheel_02a_18x10_FL and wheel 03a_16x9_FL - the default vehicle uses wheel_03a_16x9 so that is what we will name our tires (if your tires do not show up in BeamNG then use a different tire name until it shows up in BeamNG). on the ExampleCar. Drivers side is the left side. you may have noticed the acronym at the end of the names such as "xxx_RL". L = Left R = Right FL = Front Left RL = Rear Left FR = Front Right RR = Rear Right. Make sure you have files like this below: 5. Make sure the car is centered You must center the origin of each car part to x0, y0, z0, this is the default location of the origin in BeamNG. The easy way to do this is right before you are ready to Export the car. In blender select object mode. In the 3D view port press N to bring up the right properties menu. Look for the "3D Coursor" section and set this to y0 x0 z0. Now in the 3D viewport to select all objects in the scene make sure you are in "Object mode" press A to select all, now press CTRL + A and select "Rotation & Scale" then press CTRL + A again and select Location, this will center all the parts to the origin. 6. Export your car as .dae into the BoxCar folder. In blender to Export the file as .dae Go to - File > Export > "Collada (Default) (.dae) save the file in the BoxCar Folder. (any changes made to the 3D model must be Exported to the .dae folder again, while in game press CTRL+R to load the changes.) Your car is now ready to go in game! At debug time (game start) the program checks the files being called. It looks in the jbeam files for the names of the meshes it needs and puts the jbeams and meshes together like peanut butter and jelly. Last part: give the car an official load name: copy the name.cs file from the fullsize folder into your BoxCar folder. Open the folder it will say: %vehicleName = "insert name here"; this is the name the game will show when you go to open the car in BeamNG. fire up the game and load your car > enjoy! Remeber the steps! 1. Create a New folder in Vehicles Folder 2. Rename the Files 3. Rename the .jbeam files 4. Rename the car parts in Blender 5. Make sure the car is centered 6. Export the your car as .dae into the BoxCar folder Use this method to put any car into the game! Problems? (Question) It won't show up in game. 99% of the time it is a naming error. Double check the names of the parts in the outliner, also make sure that the file name is fullsize.DAE and not fullsize.dae.DAE Extra Credit: (Question) What if I only have a hood or a panel or a seat?.. No worries just name it correctly and export as .dae and put it in game! Rock on! (Question) What if I want to use the pickup jbeam or van jbeam? The format is the same as the tutorial, copy all the pickup.jbeam files into your folder and begin the rename process. (Question) How detailed does my model have to be? It can be a bunch of boxes, or so detailed it makes your machine crawl, as long as it has the right name and has a material it will load to game. Extra Extra Credit: (Question) what if I want the jbeam to fit my model closer? You sir get an apple! the way I do it, wrong or right, is look at the jbeam in the game and look at my own model, load the vehicle you want and study the jbeam structure of the part you are trying to match with it, in this example the hood. Press CTRL+L to bring up the jbeam and names, keep pressing L until you see node names Locate the node h4LL in the _hood.jbeam file of the car you are using. Use the notepad search function to find it faster, or just search with your eyes : ) On the Covet that node is this line of code in the hatch_hood.jbeam here: h4LL is located at a an xyz coordinate its: (x 0.69) (y -1.79) (z 0.73) pictured above. That is the nodes location in 3D space. The selected vertex on the hood of my car is located at coordinate (x 0.72) (y -2.01) (z 0.89) in Blender. To match the node to my vertex location I must type my vertexes coordinates from blender into the line of code for the h4LL node. like this: You must do this for all the nodes in the file to match the jbeam to your mesh vertex locations. it is alot of guess work of where you want to line up the node to what vertex. Repeat for each node - grab a cup of coffee and hunker down for a long night! Save the file when done - nothing like losing hours of work. There must be a faster way to do this that I am not aware of : ) Thanks all for looking, hope this helps!!
Re: [TUTORIAL:] Putting you car into BeamNG! You got it mostly correct, except teaching people to name things the same as Gabester's only causes bugs, and deleted files when an update comes.
Re: [TUTORIAL:] Putting you car into BeamNG! oops didn't think of that, but I hope after using this tutorial most will have the tools necessary to do this again in a similar way, unless the update does away with this naming system
Re: [TUTORIAL:] Putting you car into BeamNG! You don't understand how the updater works I guess. It looks at all the game files, if anything is different/changed, the updater will replace it with the most current build's file. The proper, reliable way to do things is to copy the fullsize folder, and then start renaming everything. It can still use the same jbeam, node names. Mesh object names, texture and material names, break groups, lights, all should be changed. This will prevent weird things happening when 2 or more vehicles load, such as loading the Grand Marshal with your mod might cause bugs. EDIT: No offense intended, but being as new to modding this game as you are, I don't think the right thing to do is to make a tutorial to modding vehicles.
Re: [TUTORIAL:] Putting you car into BeamNG! True. Ill have to add to the tutorial the way to change the names of the files and jbeam files to match the name the user makes up. Coming soon. Edit: got an idea I'll just release a fully renamed version of this car for reference so that everyone will be able to see the difference in naming it to a new car vs using the same naming convention of an existing car : )
Re: [TUTORIAL:] Putting you car into BeamNG! As helpfull as this is to beginners, I have a feeling its going to result in a bunch of "carton cars" being built and loaded into the game on Grand Marshal J-Beams.
Re: [TUTORIAL:] Putting you car into BeamNG! Very nice, thank you! But as dkutch said, as you seem to be new to it yourself, i would wish you keep this thread under maintenance to improve it while you learn more. That way it could become more and more useful and correct over time i think. True, one reason more for drowsys new posting rules i guess. But Jbeam tutorials are needed badly. Im sure we can gain a good jbeamer here and there, inbetween the 50 carton cars that come along in the same time.^^
Re: [TUTORIAL:] Putting you car into BeamNG! Yup will do as I learn I'll update the thread, right now I'm studying UV Mapping and DDS files so that I can get texture into the game, I'll post a tutorial of that soon. Later I'll figure out how to jbeam and go from there, in a couple weeks time I hope to teach how to create it all from scratch. I wish there was a section just for tutorials like this all in one place. Or maybe someone can compile a list of tutorials in one thread. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
for the wheels they must be set to a specific location to match the wheels in the jbeam file of the car. Here are the coordinates for each wheel (in the pictures) . Set the origin to geometry first per wheel then set the xyz coordinates to the ones in the pictures, then reset the origin of each wheel again using - CTRL + A and selecting location. (this vehicle has the correct wheel location for all models using this jbeam structure)
yea i did something wrong cuz when i did that it still does the same thing as befor just now in a different spot. no matter what, where ever i move them they steer as if they were connected to a rod and it spun at the center of the rod and they rotate off center
