Car tutorial / not finished but alot info ;)

[cylais]

Wow Bloom! You really have a thing for classics huh? That Mustang convertible is great! They're all great actually. Love the cab too.
Yeah I'm done. If you completed the 5.0 I'd love to see it. Don't tease me please!

[BlooM]

Lol, no i once converted another classic stang from GTA but never received permission to post it.
Its my favorite
I was working on the convertible (with permission of the original creator) but some one beat me to it.
The cobra was missing the inside doors, was working on that.
I used Z modeler to convert the GTA cars but could only export them to 3ds format.
Then used Poser to convert them to obj file wich often mixed all the parts like on the Javelin and cab.
I dont have a 5.0 mesh but if you cant manage ill help, for sure

If your mesh is ready you need to clone a maxis car wich has a bit of the same seats height and roof height
You import that mesh first in Milkshape so you have the correct skeleton, then import the 5.0
Then move the 5.0 till the seats and steering wheel are in the same position as the maxis one without lifting the car.
Then look to wich bones the doors/wheels/body are assigned and use the same settings on your own mesh.
After that there comes a nasty part of fixing the skeleton in both the mesh and Cres file of the package.

You did see the cars i uploaded in my section?

[cylais]

I had no idea! You are no joke! Making tractors too! I used to drive big 18 wheelers over the road. I don't miss it really but it'll be nice to have some trucks in my game. HOT!

Hey I looked at that Polonez 2.0X Coupe and I was wondering if it's possible to clone custom cars to get the skeletons and bones assignments. I'm remembering what you said about cloning a car that is similar. Well if not could you tell me which car you cloned to do this vehicle? It will probably work for the 5.0 since it is a 2-door with a back seat.

[BlooM]

no, i need to explain how to move the bones wich is already done with custom cars and that will things make more complicated(srry, i forgot)
Clone the default starters car

Cloning a default car
*open Simpe
*Hit Object Workshop(bottom line by default)
*Start(takes a while)
*lookup the car you want to clone(General/cars/)
i would pick the starterscar(2door) because the sportscar might be to low?
*next
*select clone at TASK box
*tick all boxes exept the box ''reference original mesh''
*next
Give it a title, a price and description
*finish(takes a while)
* a popup will apear
At this point i am not 100% sure if the modelname is already unique or if its still the default one as i am registred with Simpe wich gives me automaticly a updated name.
To be sure, add your name to it and click update then ok
*Save your file

Go to the Geometric Data Container(resource tree window) and select it.
In the left window(resource list) right click the gmdc(tslocator) and choose extract
Save the mesh.

[BlooM]

Import the default mesh and tick the skeleton box(joints tab)
You now see the cars skeleton(blue circles)
In that same tab there is a list with the bone names, highlight the first bone and hit the button selassigned.
Vertices that are assigned to that bone will become red, if not go to the 2nd bonename and repeat.
At one point you will see(arround the 5th bonename) that the vertices will become red.(prolly the vertices from the body)
I always used Wes H his bonetool to change boneassignements, its in the Vertex menu.
experiment with it and see if you can assigne the vertices of your car.
You import the 5.0 and look to wich bones the rear wheels are assigned on the maxis mesh.(then lookup the bonenumber with unimeshbonetool.)
Hide the maxis mesh.
Then select the rear wheels of the 5.0 and use the bonetool to assigne them to the correct bone.
when done, hide the rear wheels
Repeat these steps for the doors, then the front wheels.
If you hide the individual parts all wat will be left is the body, assigne it also to the correct bonenumber.

This is one of the reasons i want people to keep all the parts in seperate meshgroups.
You can simply select the meshgroup in the groupstab, select it and assigne the bone to it.
You even can regroup the left and right door/frontwheels to work even quicker.

Also fix the group comments and the meshnames.
Keep the groups seperate, just name them the same if they use the same texturefile!!!
When done delete the maxis car

[BlooM]

This will keep you busy i guess.
You now have seen the skeleton/bones but you must have noticed that the bones are not in the correct place.
Like the 2 bones for the rear wheels, they are centered on the rear wheels on the maxis mesh but prolly far off comparing them to the the ones from the 5.0.
Next thing is moving that bone to the center of the 5.0 rear wheels.
Same with both individual front wheels and the door hinge.
Moving them in the mesh aint that hard but you need to update the CRES(in the cloned package) at the same time.
Take a look at it, open your package:
*Resource node(resource list)
*Cres file (resource tree)
*hit the tab CRES hierarchie
This is the full skeleton........still want to continue?

[BlooM]

I have seen the the car, looking good!
The model does have some normal problems, but might not be that visible ingame.
You have to revisit the bonesettings on the wheels tho, parts of the body are assigned to it.
Doors are ok, but you need to assigne the doorwindows also to it.
Also the interieur chrome etc needs bones.
If you have fixed the wheels you select the bones again in the joint tab(also use it to fix the wheels).
Select the rearwheel bones, then hide them,
Do this again with the front wheels and the doors, all wat will be left needs to be assigned to the bodybone.
The textures will be a awfull lot of work and im thinking it might be easier to use all existing ones although i dont like the way how they gave the car recolors.
Personal i would not use the tires, they give the car a high polygon count.
If it wasn't for the textures this car would be up and running in a hour
Going to look at the original model.

Lol, you got me addictive....
it will be a shame not to use the original textures!
The mesh does however use duplicates, prolly to give it a reflection

[cylais]

I said I would start over and I did. Now I'm looking at the 5.0 and the maxis minima. The bones are all assigned but the skeleton is still under the Minima so I've opened up the package in SimPe. I hope I'll be able to figure this mess out. Talk soon.

[BlooM]

Have taste victory so many times when finishing cars like this but this one is pretty hard for someone who's just starting....
also started from scratch and choose the sportscar as this is a difficult car to scale to maxis size.
If you like i finish it (going to do that anyway cos i want to see it ingame.)
I did change the rims on it tho...

[BlooM]

I have a few minutes left to explain how the bone changes work.

Your mesh is ready and bones are assigned to the body/wheels and doors, you renamed all meshgroups.
Wats left is its skeleton and your mesh and the basegame car
You can already extract your mesh with the unimesh plugin and load it in Simpe by right clicking the gmdc and choose replace but delete the basegame car first.
Use ctrl z to bring it back, works easier to find the correct bone.
In the bottom window in Simpe you can see a preview of the mesh and its bones.(textures are still screwed) and so are the bones.

Milkshape
go to side view of the car and select the rearwheel bone(the circle becomes red)(Model/select/joint buttons)
Click move button and fill in some numbers, like 0.3 in the z box, then click move
You see the bone move at the screen but still of the centre of the wheel, click ctrl z and the bone will jump back to original position.
Repeat these steps till you have figured out the exact number so the bones ends up in the centre of the wheel.(these could be negative numbers!)
Write this down!
Now do the same with the y box(if necesarry)
The x box aint important for the rear wheels.
You have written down how much the bone should be replaced in y and z direction.

Simpe,
Go to the cres file in your package and click the creshierarchie tab.
Look up the rear right wheel rot and click it, you jump to the cTransformnode
In the translation boxes you fill in the numbers you just wrote down.
NOTE, To make things even more complicated, the Y and Z axes are switched when you update the movement of the bone in the cres file.
So Y in Milkshape is Z in the Cres file and vice versa
 
Click commit
Repeat for the left rear wheel rot.
click commit and save your file.
You can in the mean time extract your mesh(without the maxis car) and load it in simpe.
Go to the gmdc and look at the preview, if you have done it all correct the bones are now were the wheels are, centered.

Note,
When editing the bonepositions on the axes you sometimes need to switch positive and negative, use Simpes preview to check.

The next bone is the door hinge, called the door rot in the cres file.
Take a good look on how its position on the default car and reposition it on your own car by moving it.
You always can export the file and import it in simpe to see wat you have done.
Then the front wheels(r_wheel_rot i guess, forgot), same way, hope you can figure this out.
When done correctly you see something similar as this:


Oh, it is important that the 5.0 is as wide as the basegame car and that the seat and steering wheel match!!
I scaled your model in porportion but i had to extend the steering wheel and colum and move the seat forward to make it all fit.
This is really important before you start with the bones!!
You can not change it after you adjusted the bones, you then have to start over....

[cylais]

BlooM you is da man! I was just posting another bunch of questions about the CRES when you put this up! Wow! It looks so HOT! Love the rims! Dude when you finish it let me know. You did in a couple of hours what I haven't accomplished in a couple of weeks. I'm gonna try to contact the mesh creator.

[BlooM]

uh, i spent more then 8 hours on it lol
but i love stuff like this
Still need to figure out the backlights, the last thing....

[cylais]

8 hours he says. Did I say 2 weeks! Late nights! getting bags under my eyes! You da man BlooM! Don't even play!
The back lights were colored by the 93br_body_ texture. The file is one of the 93fbr_bdy_[en02].

[BlooM]

I made a mistake(its been to long....)
To make things even more complicated, the Y and Z axes are switched when you update the movement of the bone in the cres file.
So Y in Milkshape is Z in the Cres file and vice versa

If you need to start over(have had that many times....you simply start fresh by importing the original default cloned car and then import your own mesh without additional bonesettings.
you will have the original skeleton and its positions back while the vertices of your custom mesh are still assigned

[BlooM]

The door hinge and the frontwheel steering rot

These 2 rots(4 total) are difficult to adjust but you can use the animate tools in Milkshape to actual see the movement of the door and wheels.
Unhide the skeleton and hit the ''anim'' key at the far right bottom of Milkshape(Make sure the ''show keyframer'' is enabled, you find it in the Window Tab)
Go to top view and select one of the bones(Select/joints at select options)
The bone(blue circle) becomes red.
With the rotate button you now can open the door or see how the front wheel is steering.
Look at the screenshot, i need to move the doorhinge(bone) a bit more inside the vehicle.