New to blender and finally worked out getting a simple model made (not a car). With the help of some of the posts and videos (including some from this site), I was able to unwrap and put a texture on my simple model, setup the camera, and light, and even render. Then I exported and brought it up in Beamng. I did get the textute to show up after renaming the material, I believe in the cs file. Anyway my issue of course is collision. And I did search and read through many many threads on this site and others. Of course, the best I found was from LFHUTCH (I think thats right). However, he was using blender 2.5 and importing a template blender file from the wiki in his video. Again, I am a noob to blender. I will try this tonight. I was wondering however if this is still relavent in Blender 2.7? As well his post was a year old. Is there another way (or done differently) in 2.7? Can someone give some basic instructions on setting this up without the template and explain reasons and so forth? I just like to understand what I am doing. For example: From one of Hutches posts: I work from a single source file like "oaktrees.blend" and then import each object into another blend which I set up like in that image before exporting to T3D. I am going to try this tonight with the template, Blender_export_template.blend from the wiki. I guess blender is pecular, I don't understand why this would be necessary, unless Hutch just uses a template to save time as he makes a lot of models to import into blender. I would like to understand the setup and its relavence to Beamng (specific code) and T3D in general. I know this has probably been asked a billion times, so if there is an existing thread with these answers, I could not find it, kindly point me to it. Thanks
Use the template file supplied here: http://wiki.beamng.com/Exporting_static_objects In order for collision to function you should model a lower-detail version of the object to function as the collision mesh. Before exporting, check for the following: 1.) The collision mesh should be named "Colmesh-1". 2.) The collision mesh should be with the visible mesh object(s) in the Outliner hierarchy, parented to the "start01" object. 3.) You must apply rotation and scale to the collision mesh (Ctrl-A). 4.) You must ensure that the collision mesh has the same object origin (centre point) as the visible mesh. 5.) All normals must face outwards or else the object will eat cars. Use Ctrl-N to recalculate the normals.
I tried this last night and did not succeed. I checked the video again this morning, I did not select cycle render and texture in the video. Also, some other questions. Does it matter if the visible mesh has rectangles not triangles. So, I will try again tonight. Another question If I use the decimeter to change the rectangles to triangles and lower the vertices will this ruin my uv mapped texture? Thanks edit: After further searching I did see that vehcile on vehicle collision does requier traingles, could not find anything on simple objecs.
Converting to triangles within Blender is not necessary - this will be done automatically upon export. Using the Decimator tool is not recommended as this will completely ruin any polygon flow, and will also mess up the UV mapping.
Well, I did get it to work last night. I did change it to triangles (Cntr-T) and I centered to 0,0,0 and it did work (Collision worked). However, my uvmapped texture did get screwed up. There are holes in it. I did select uvmap and texture in the export, is that not a good idea? Not a biggie, I can redo it this weekend, at least I got collision to work and I can get to modeling my map. I do want to lower the poly count of the triangles as its like 8000 or something up there for a pretty small object. If not the decimeter, what is the recommended way? I appriecate your advice. Also, I don't think the first time I tried this it automatically changed it to trangles as it is smooth and the uvmap was perfect except for the seem of course. Is there a selection to triangulate at export or is it truely automatic?
"Is there a selection to triangulate at export or is it truly automatic?" Yes and to some degree yes. It coverts it at to triangles at export as the default settings at export. "If not the decimeter, what is the recommended way?" I would need to see the model to give you the best answer. but just from my experience with my models... Decimeter is the best looking dirty way but will rip up any preexisting UV map. making "holes" all over your model. You would have to re UV unwrap it and use texture painting to fix it. You could go in to edit mode and select all your vertices by pressing A and use Limited Dissolve in the delete menu, witch may or may not work for you. But it's another fast and dirty way to lower your poly count. Also it will not hurt your UV map as bad. If you PM'ed me the model so I could take a look at it I could be of more help.
