Tutorial-Creating Custom Cars

[Franky]

Custom Car Creation Tutorial :

By: Franky

Level: Intermediate

Tutorial can be accessed from here:

[Nita-Chan]

My brother will be SO happy that you posted this.  I know I am!  Thanks a lot for this nifty little tutorial! <333

[kokozas]

Thanks a lot for this, I might give it a shot now

[BlooM]

I could use some help here...
How i create a standalone car?
If i clone a excisting car it overrides the base game one.
No matter wat i try, renaming/fixing intigrity or create a standalone object.
It keeps messing up the original car from maxis.

Edit:
Think im on the right path here.
I gave the car a new guide numb and it seems its a standalone object now

[daz_far]

what about using a premade mesh? i want to make a Smart ForTwo. i already have a mesh

[Franky]

Daz_far, many creators have used premade meshes and made lovely car objects. Just make sure you separate the necessary parts such as wheels, doors, etc.

BTW, I if it isn't too much to ask, I'd love to see the smart car once it's finished as I like the look of them and was actually considering making one myself at one time. If you make it, I'd love to have it in my game as well.

[BlooM]

I have seen the smart car on one of the forums on MTS2 but i dont know if the guy ever released it.

You still making cars Franky?
I found a way to keep the car woohoo animations without the fog

[Franky]

I have seen the smart car on one of the forums on MTS2 but i dont know if the guy ever released it.

You still making cars Franky?
I found a way to keep the car woohoo animations without the fog

I haven't made any objects in a long time. Good job on figuring out on how to keep the "foggy" animations.

[daz_far]

Daz_far, many creators have used premade meshes and made lovely car objects. Just make sure you separate the necessary parts such as wheels, doors, etc.

BTW, I if it isn't too much to ask, I'd love to see the smart car once it's finished as I like the look of them and was actually considering making one myself at one time. If you make it, I'd love to have it in my game as well.

you see the problem is i dont have Milkshape, i use 3DSMax

[Franky]

I use 3ds Max too, especially to build my models because Milkshape just doesn't have the modelling capabilities that 3ds has.

However, Milkshape is good for assigning vertices to the proper joints. It only costs like $25 US. If you live in Canada, UK, or Europe it will be considerably cheaper because the US dollar is very weak at present.

[daz_far]

ok then, so what is meant by "separating" the doors, the mirrors, etc from the main body? I'm now trying to work on a Nissan March (Micra), and im facing other problems that involve me not being able to import my OBJ model into Milkshape (which I just obtained). when I import the model, milkshape zooms out to a ridiculous level and imports nothing. Am I doing something wrong? Do I have to join the entities in a group together? If so, How?

[BlooM]

i had that with a few obj. files daz
the model is there tho, i think it has to do with a few things like the material settings and such.
just open a maxis car first in milkshape or import one with unimesh later.
The view gets fixed then.

The doors have to open and close so they have to be seperated from the main body.
They can be part of the body but if you select the faces of the door and move them arround the door should move individually, not being attached to the rest of the body and drag those faces with it.

[daz_far]

what i mean is, the main body group, as i saw in the maxis car object, consists of the mainframe. In my Nissan March object, the main body includes things like handles, Nissan Logo, bonnet, mirror, etc, will i have to make all these pieces into one mesh and merge it together somehow? By one mesh, i am talking about having to merge all the 3d entities into one entity, possible reducing the amount of faces and vertices, which is at a ridiculous 27,000.

[BlooM]

yup, regroup those parts together.

However, i normally just rename them the same as the mainframe wich allows me to keep things a bit organized and its ez when it turns out i have to adjust parts of it.(when i have tested them ingame and all is well, then i regroup them.)
When i make a car i regroup al the parts for the interieur(or rename them the same)
I regroup the body and the chassis(or rename.....blablabla)
One regroup for the left window
One regroup for the right window
One group for the front window
One for the headlight glasses if you need/want those transparant.

Normally there's one group for the rearwindow also, but if your not planning to use the car for a model that actual uses the backdoor with window(like ambulance and pizzadelivery and such then you can use that group to assigne all the chrome parts the car has.

Now, regrouping is a bit dangerous because everypart has, or should have his spot on the uvmap.
The uvmap is a organized flat map were your parts are fold out to get them there textures.
So select the parts first that you want to regroup, assigne a material to them and look at the uvmap on how they are mapped and if they will interfear with eachother when you regoup them.(it is possible you have to map or remap the parts cos not every 3d model comes with a proper uvmap.)

27.000 is alot, but i dont know if it still has the original rims and tires, you can use rims and tires from a maxis car instead.

I was planning to release one of the cars i did recently, you can use that one to look for some settings and stuff

[Franky]

Bloom, I could not have put it better myself. Thanks for your help and support on this thread. You're a real life saver.

Daz, if you use 3ds Max, you can apply an optimize modifier to reduce the poly count. Like Bloom suggested, it's good to use the Maxis rims and tires as they are already the perfect size, shape, and in proper position relative to their respective joints. They also have decent polygon counts. Another tip is to utilize the inside of the car (if fitting) as it illiminates the need for extra modelling. However, you may want to remap them depending on whether or not you utilize the original car's texture(s).