IMPORTANT NEWS FLASH

After messing about with the VCK, there is a suspicion that it might be capable of more than cars, yes you got it Cities.

After looking at modtypes.ini, the plugin texture options (floor/ceilings/signpost)

I produced a basic model and instead of prefixing it vp i put city at the end of the name instead so testcity.max /testcity.geo

Usually in asset manager the 2nd node in the tree is PlayerVechicle name, this time it came up City testcity.

No models were listed but that's most probably down to lack of proper naming conventions.

I intend to look into this more.

 

The Chevy Lumina

The original model 15000 polygons
-

The model after optimization :5000 polygons

notice the wheels are simpler, i just replaced them with cylinders and the back window is just a block

The model traced using splines : 500 polygons

 




Even though there are visible differences between the 5000 and 500 models, it's more down to my poor texturing than anything else.


Note how detailed the wheels are in the original. Couple of thousand polys for the wheel, where the 500 has about 40 for the wheels.
The texture for the wheels is the redrocket , so as you see good texturing replaces the need for actual modeling.


I decided to start the model from scratch as the shape isn't too difficult. 
These are my first use of proper textures, the white bit on the bottom of the car is a rather poor bumper.
The first 2 models are made of multiple smaller models that are separate. Where the last model is one object ( what makes texturing a pain),
at the moment there are damage textures in the scene but not assigned to the model, so it will most probably crash when u crash the car, like the earlier bertiewonga.

I could off put the damage textures on , but i'm still not sure where they go, so it was messing up the normal textures.
Lessons Learned , i believe in the long run it is easier to start cars from scratch than to try and convert premade models into MTM cars.
By using spline modeling in MAX,( will be covered in DesignFaq ) allows u to effectively trace the profile of a model.That's what i done with the chevy.
If you look at the side profile, all that is really needed is the shape of the car, the windows , etc should all be done with textures.
The redrocket uses textures to add all this detail.  So the really good looking cars will be more down to the skill of the texture artist than the modeler.
 
Again I'm not sure this car will work, but I'm using the same methods as the bertiewonga.
Over the next couple of days, i will try to smooth it all out, as you can see the model is a bit rough and ready and the textures really need some work.
If you want just send me the textures, just use the ones i used and modify them (keep image size the same ), once the textures are assigned and properly placed, it is easy to replace them with modified versions. 

I have included the geo file
if you have generated previous GEO files , go to c:\vck\angel and run clean.bat , 
,add custom sounds by putting wav files in c:\vck\shop\aud\aud11 or aud22 (type of wav in each directory ) then edit the 
vpbertiewonga.mmplayercaraudio file in c:\shop\tune to include them. 
Also edit the performance file vpbertiewonga.mmcarsim in c:\shop\tune
Put the GEO file in c:\vck\shop\geo and change the directory to c:\vck\shop then type ship vpchevylumina
The ar file will reside in your c:\vck\build and MTM directory.

 

Status of Chevy

-Version 1.1 

-The textures were messed up except the side textures (the messed up textures are the RR ones ), this is down to using new textures but with the same name as the Red Rocket, by renaming them the right ones should be used.

Status of ChevySmall

-Present Version 1.0

- The Chevysmall is a little experiment, it is the same model as the Chevy but shrunk, it has custom Horn, engine, Idle sounds and slight tweaks to the inboard camera view.


Status of BetieWonga
-Present Version 1.3
-work out textures so 1.4 should have proper textures

Status of DesignFAQ
-Present 1.3
-1.4 Just finished doing MAX Tricks, Texturing Cars 
-Texturing Cars is most probably the hardest /time consuming part of the car creation business, it involves a tricky process .
-Adding Spline modeling , allows much greater control and range over using primitives.
- will try and fathom damage textures, seeing where they are placed is a pain.


 
David Renton (Spawnbob)
ek184@city.ac.uk