ok. so i work for a road survay team and we want to see how usefull this game/program will be as for demonstrations for our product. we currently have a 2008 ford E-350 econoline van equipped with a DMI as well as laser instruments by INO and AIMS, this equipment is a digital means of collecting pavement conditions. i do not have much experience with 3d modeling for video games. i have gotten my feet wet however making 3d models in google sketchup and exporting to cura for 3d printing, and have did a few still renders in blender (still could use some brushing up with this program. it has tuns of tools, far more than i know what to do with) im looking for assistance in ether making the vehicle or assistance in learning how to do so myself by video tutorials/demonstrations. HERE is a link to our site, there you will find the vehicle we are trying to re-build in a simulated 3d environment.
Cool, but this is more of a game and less of a professional tool. Nevertheless, you could still achieve what you're talking about with a lot of work. I'll link the wiki on how to create Jbeam (the physical structure of the vehicle) http://wiki.beamng.com/Introduction_to_Vehicle_Creation
i'm not much for coding. this looks a little complicated. if all else fails do you have any other recommendation for a tool to do animation with simple files made via google sketchup?
Ehhh no. That's about as simple as it gets. This isn't a pre-rigged scripted rendering engine. Besides, while Sketchup is useful for presentations and concepts, it is terrible in video game development due to the terrible poly flow. If you want, try Blender. It's about as easy as Sketchup as long as you don't go into shock the first time you open it.
i actually do some stills there. i make the basic shapes of what i want in shape up, and export as a 3ds or dae file format and import on blender. however if i want to get more into blender. i could just do the animation there. i wish there was a simple easy to use content creator for more basic vehicles (not including the soft body physics)
Interesting. As far as creating the van on your website, you could use the Gavril H series as a base: It's pretty much the same thing as the Ford van you're using, but fictional due to legal reasons. You could then jbeam and attach the kit to this van, and it should be much like the one you're using. As far as getting the actual laser kit to work and generate data, I don't think it's possible yet, and would probably require something like raycasting to make it possible (implementing raytracing has been suggested)
