TL;DR: first car, modeled exterior and mechanical parts, next is jbeam, interior is last on list Hi, this is my first 3d modeling project, and learning blender mostly by myself was a lot of pain, should've checked Zappymouse's tutorial earlier for obvious keyboard shortcuts Tutorial-Don-t-know-how-to-Blender-Learn-here and the BeamNG wiki. I started on 14/09, and worked about 3 hours per day, using mostly BMWfans.info and Google pictures for different angles, and quick searches on blender forums when panicking. Some parts like the fenders and roof have been rebuild more than 4 times, and parts are missing but I want to get it in the game with a basic jbeam build and then continue the model. -Missing parts: the whole interior, engine details, wheel housing, fuel cap and tank, door handles, trunk, rear lights details. -To modify later: remodel front bumper(bad blueprints), redo windows, reduce poly on front lights and mechanical parts. -To Do: jbeam, textures, really nice transparency on lights. I need this thread to keep myself motivated, so let's rock. Oh and I have a -my dreadful experience with blender- log , my progress with blender. Just ask if you want to see it, it's ridiculous
thats quite a high poly model in my opinion, i'm not sure if it's too high or not, i recommend you open some of the official car daes, just to get an idea of the poly count they use
I'm at 25k vertices now and 5k more for the interior to be modeled, most cars have around 30k vertices. I've modeled the seats,wheel inner covers and almost finished the trunk. Also writing jbeam using blender exporter, but technical wizardry comes from gabester. Once I'll fully understand how it works, I'll rewrite it to be more unique.
It would be easyer to model using squares than tri´s. When you export the model, it is automatically turned into tris.
I got it in the game, and it exploded Well, in fact JBeaming is the hardest part to code. I don't expect to release it anytime soon...
I think it would be cool the see the dreadful experiences with blender -log. When I initially tried to model the BMW I'm working on now it didn't turn out too well. Good work, and very commendable effort!
Make sure every jbeam of a vehicle has the same 'global' scale value! ( like "scalenodeWeight", "scalebeamSpring" etc) If it still happens, you can or lower the beamspring values settings or increasing the nodeweight. (light nodes can't handle high spring values, they will behave unstable. There is a max ratio for each material)
Please don't reply directly to this... . If too long, there are some notable points at the end of this post. This list of events was written as the project advanced. Started on 14/09, no Fridays and Saturdays, about 3-4 hours per day. -Day one, what is blender and how it works, how default cars are made mesh wise and parts list. searching like crazy for internal parts of the car (bmw e87, 120i, 120d, series 1, 116). -build: chassis, fenders. -wheel, discovered "shift g", "ctrl g", import as simple mesh into the game, curious why the parts are invisible on one side. -chassis base, discovered "shift f". realized that triangles are rendered on one side only. oh well, all parts must have 2 faces, thickness, rebuild all. -disk brake V1, rear wheel hub. -rear axle, discovered 'flip normals', rear suspension arms. -front axle, discovered 'ctrl shift n'. -front wheel hub, front suspension arms. -build rear spring, oh wait i found bevels, kinda hard to use. im NOT going to make mesh triangles by hand,f that. panick. discovered "ctrl t". that's way easier now. ctrl t on every part, thousands of triangles created that day. -realized that being a mechanic apprentice doesn't help. -chassis, covers for wheels. -front bumper, discovered major flaw in bad blueprints, discovered tool:ruler, kinda broken, metric scale and see that the car size is imprecise. -rear bumper and 5th door, discovered that high poly is definitely worth it if done properly, and less time consuming. that's what i call optimization, dummy me. i've never deleted the rear bumper to remodel it. -build the hood. -doors, maybe all the bodywork should be done in one shot, and then cut with "p". -clean up parts list, very messy, no materials, weird names. -also rear fender still looks disgusting, rebuild yet again. rebuild roof. -realize that good blueprints are bad blueprints. -after a lot of tweaking, clone, mirror, join parts to build symmetrical car to see how it looks, not that bad. -rediscovered "snap to grid", clean up parts list. -October 1st - most parts are roughly done, started learning jbeam. -stopped jbeam, back to modeling, smoothing, shading. discovered "shift f and h, d". -rebuild both fenders yet again. build exhaust, engine, nameplates. -build all windows. -trash old ugly wheel,build another with rim and tire, using blueprint. very, very nice results. learned "automerge editing", snap to grid, snap to vertex. life made easy. -rebuild doors and bevels on all parts, discovered "shift b". -continued remodeling fenders with sculpt tool, nice results, hard to get right. -why the hell are my parts invisible on the wrong side when the color of the mesh seems correct for me? oh, i need to reverse all normals, discovered "shift n", but it doesn't seem to work well. -i see only the old wheel, oh god why. -found the new wheel many file versions ago. -new blueprints V4, final blueprints. rebuild roof. -realize the rear light got deleted, remodel rear light. nothing is put randomly on a car. -clean up parts list and prepare it for jbeaming. -create extremely low poly chassis for jbeam. -pause jbeam and post on forum, what if i made a horrible mistake with my car and i don't see it? -positive reaction, success . -continue jbeam, polishing model and mess up with default cars to see how jbeam skeleton works. -create a copy of hatch.jbeam, replace some values, replace nodes and beams with mine. -after many crashes, finally put only the chassis in game, boom, it explodes. -modify values, still not stable, just a blob of metal. it's ridiculous, i don't have to build by hand every node one by one with adjusting? jeez, the mesh is less than half of the work. -realize i must triple the beams number. -realize i do need flexibodies, how many times did i read the wiki? -something wierd happens, but it's because the nodes have moved from the vertices, i hope it's not a blender problem. move many chassis base vertices to ease the jbeam creation. -3 choices: ---keep going with export nodes from blender, separate parts, make a unique .jbeam . ---make a copy of hatch_race and rename my meshes. ---use the programs, DriveRTVE and NodeBeamEditor, the game itself. ---tried to create a python jbeam2obj, so i can see the jbeam in blender and put it directly on mesh, wouldn't it be totally useless? notable: -rebuild fenders, doors, hood, roof more than 4 times each. -build rear spring, oh wait i found bevels, kinda hard to use. im NOT going to make mesh triangles by hand,f that. panick. discovered "ctrl t". that's way easier now. ctrl t on every part, thousands of triangles created that day. -realized that being a mechanic doesn't help do sh*t. -clean up parts list, very messy, no materials, weird names. -after many crashes, finally put only the chassis in game, boom, it explodes. -modify values, still not stable, just a blob of metal. it's ridiculous, i don't have to build every node one by one with adjusting?if so, the mesh is less than half of the work. -find the best blueprints if you don't want to rebuild your car every time you realize that something's wrong. I'd love to see some lists like these
jbeaming is going strong, i've managed to get a more or less stable main chassis in game, suspension and wheels is next. The inside will be made after texturing.
I have wheels and working suspension on a chassis, and it's buggy as hell xD It took me 10 days to learn how it works and get a working mesh in the game. Things will get much faster now.
Please check the last dates before you post a comment. This thread hasn't been updated since 2014. This has been dead for a very long time.
2014 is... Almost 3 years ago...? With no progress from the author whatsoever in the meantime... Meaning this project was likely abandoned...
