How to make mods?

So, I'm trying to make a mod *cough cough Dodge Durango cough cough* And I don't know how to port it over from blender into a .zip working car file. I also don't know how to put the textures on my car, but that is YouTube's job. Anyways, how do I do that? Also, how do I make different versions of the car?





Dodge Durango thread will be up soon.

 

https://wiki.beamng.com/Content_Creation

https://wiki.beamng.com/Introduction_to_Vehicle_Creation

https://wiki.beamng.com/Vehicle_Creation_Megapage

Edit:
Also, see https://www.beamng.com/forums/mod-support.183/

 

Don’t start with making a whole car. Start off with learning how to texture skins, then jbeam and modeling a part.

 

I got the modelling down. I also know how to put on the textures. All I need is jbeaming and uploading it to beamng.

 

Jbeams are more difficult than modeling and texturing, even if you modify one from an already existing car. Also, do you know how to add a functional drivetrain? That said, I fully encourage you to try, we always need more good mods.

 

firstly, is the model in .dae format? if not, you'll need to go to file>export> in blender. secondly, you will need a JBeam to base it off. I would suggest going with either the etk 800 series, or the gavril roamer, the etk having more accurate construction type, rigidity and crash safety to a modern durango, and the roamer being of more accurate size and shape, despite being body on frame. after deciding, you'll need to make a new vehicle. make a file path that goes documents/beamng.drive/mods/unpacked/durango(or whatever you want the zip to be called)/vehicles/durango/, and then copy/ paste al the files from the vehicle you're using as a base other than .json, .pc, .png, .cs, .dae and .cdae files. (you may also want to copy some .dds texture files)
After this, You'll want to open any text file in the "durango" folder in notepad++, and use the "find in files" function. @HighDef explained this well in a map making tutorial, but it's basically the same for cars. in your case, you would be changing every instance of "etk800" or "roamer" to "durango" (or whatever else you called the folders before) it is explained around the 15:19 mark in the below video:

after that, to make a basic "mesh slap" mod, the model has to be separated into parts. for an example of how this is done, import the .dae file of a stock vehicle into blender, and poke around with it. you will see, for example, the chassis and body will be separate in some vehicles, and the doors, seats, hood, fenders, fascia, all the glass etc. are all separate parts. and your model will need to be the same. (I have no idea what to do there, there's probably some fancy thing you can do.)
once that is done, and all the parts are named accordingly (in the right side toolbar in blender) the JBeam files have to be edited so that the "flexbodies" section tells the game to load the mesh named, for examle, "durango_bumper_F" instead of "etk800_bumper_F". note that the first name on each line is the name of the mesh, and every other name after that on the same line is the referring to the JBeam groups which it follows the deformation of.
note also that you may have to add or remove some lines if the durango model is separated into more parts, for example if the chrome front grille was a separate part to the bumper around it.
at this point, you would have a "mesh slap" model, ready to go on modsgaming.us or whatever. now you just have to fiddle around with nodes, beams, and triangles, changing positions, weights and rigidity until it works well.

 

blender is acting weird it wont let me import the textures.

 

I need some answers, jbeam export = craptastic amount of nodes that I don't need, does anyone else have a better suggestion on making jbeam? (don't give me the link to the wiki, i used that)

 

nope, unless you can find a truck-shaped mod body in automation, and then export it.

 

No not automation export, blender export.

 

as in to then use the truck-shaped jbeam which automation exports, and replace the automation meshes with the ones from ets.

 

What for you would need to import textures to Blender? You don't really need to do such as Blender has not much to do with making textures appear, all that matters is that material name you see in Blender is written to mapTo line of materials.cs file in folder that contains your vehicle's .dae file.

@iplaybeam jbeam export is not automatic solution, you have to manually make jbeam structure in Blender first, which you export, you don't export 3d model and except it to be working jbeam, it is not meant to be used that way.

 

oooooooooooooh. so thats means I have to make a low poly version of my model then use the export as a base for the jbeam. Time to blow off 72 hours trying it.

 

It's quite a bit more complicated than that. Check the content creation section of the wiki, there are good explanations about how jbeam structures work in there.