Vehicle details

[Jackie]

I hope that i didnt post this to wrong category .

I am starting to work on vehicles for maybe a new mod,dk yet, i am using zmodeler 3 and how much detail should i make them? I know that game doesnt have best graphics like emergency 2014 so is the best thing to put texture over headlights and front grill(where car emblems are). Also the steering wheel,center console - i dont need to make them,right?

And what other parts need to be detachable beside the doors(all 4) and wheels?

I am sorry if the question are stupid,there is a lot of you that make mods here,can u give some rookie advice ,i am not new to modeling cars,just want to make this simple as possible. Thank you.

[rettungstier]

well as far as i can remember about 800 polygons for a car should be okay (up to 1200 for a truck too). you could have more without effecting the game performance much but i think you won't be needing more than that.

 

things that should be modeled are the basic shape of the car with mirrors and bumpers.

there is no need to make an interior appearance, unless...

... you want to have separate doors (for open/close animations), then you'll need to model those too and a raw interior design.

mostly this is just some polygons and textured all black/dark cause you won't see that much of it either way.

a lot of things can be done with the right skin so you don't have to make all that stuff like windows, etc. 3d

 

i'd suggest to check out closeup videos or screenshots of existing vehicles in emergency 4 where you can actually see the detail level.

also pics of "WIP" models without a texture yet could be very helpful!

 

greetz

[Jackie]

Thank you, i followed your advice, did some modeling, but i have problems. My blueprints dont match(top and front ) and making parallel edges is kinda hard,i mostly use extrude/edge to make a general shape,and when i try inserting new edge,it inserts it where i dont want it,so i get stucked for hours trying to make it good.

Also tried chamfer,no luck with that. Sometimes it works,but in most cases i mess up even more. My biggest problem are blueprints,i found only one tutorial on yt. Top and front don't match so i cant follow blueprints properly and i mess up everything. Zmodeler site does explain how to put blueprints but no so clearly.

 

I looked every uploaded tutorial for zmodeler on yt and still i cant finish the model. I would really appreciate if someone could explain me, tell me some tips ,advice how to make it simple and smooth.

 

Thank you.

[MikeyPI]

You have to scale the images PRIOR to importing them into zmod... zmod doesnt really adjust that for you so use a paint editing program to ensure the scales of the "blueprints" match before ya use them, alot of car model diagrams from plastic model car kits are out there that are to scale, generally very low detail levels but if you take a better image/blueprint and scale it to fit over the ones on there originally it generally would suffice to work... However what I do is to mainly just make the thing's side first, then work on either the front or the back, then the top last (most vehicles roofs arent that complex so they can kinda be fudged into the shape they belong in).  Don't overly worry about the scaling being off as you can adjust that after the fact, just make sure that you have the polygonal lines matched where you have the front/rear/top/side meeting otherwise your model may go downhill fast.

 

For the most part when it comes to making models you can get away with around 2500-3000 polys and not kill people's computers for a normal (common) vehicle IE a cop car and such.  The wheels, doors you wish to open, trunklid (if applicable) should be detatched, though they can be created as one model then cut out later (that's how I do it)....  Make sure you model the tires (just a donut the texture really is more important for the wheel it is a waste to overkill a rim) it is wise to do the mirrors, make sure that you have a basic interior tub so that when the door(s) open the thing isnt see-through inside of it.  Make sure that you have insides to the door(s) as well, do not waste polys making 3D objects like door handles, emblems, and things of that nature, you really can't see them if you're actually playing the game anyway.  In this game it's a pairing of a decent texture and a decent but light model, usually a texture of 512x or 1024x (for larger vehicles) works for them, along with a decent detail model, unlike GTA for ex where the model mostly makes the vehicle look good.

 

Goodluck hope this helps

 

mk

[Jackie]

Thank you. I worked on Golf V ,not too much because i couldnt get smooth side. Tried with chamfer and with adding a edges to make it smooth,but it doesn't make it as i need to. About blueprints, i know that side,front and back need to be same height, and top width as side. Later i found out that blueprints were made poorly so i didn't care to much. But i rember when i worked on 3d max( diffrent way of adding bp, i know) i didnt notice if blueprints were made poorly,they matched. And i used some of them for zmodeler and then they didn't match. Never mind on that,i am used to it now. I know that i need to make parallel edges and everything and i adjust them to as best as bp lets me,but it doesnt end nice. I am giving you some pictures to see my work. I need help to make doors smoother ,i first created a general shape,then adjust mesh and worked quite a long time on the doors. Other parts i didnt touched at all. It isn't pretty not finished. I really need help to learn to smooth them.

 

Thank you for all advices so far. 

 

http://postimg.org/image/3k1lonn6z/

http://postimg.org/image/iu1gvuip7/

http://postimg.org/image/3u4iu9cff/

http://postimg.org/image/efoe69iqz/

http://postimg.org/image/y02x91jcb/

 

Sorry for bad grammar

[MikeyPI]

on the doors you've used possibly too many polys, which is why it looks smoother... Make sure that the whole body of the vehicle has all the vertices attatched when initially creating it (remove the tire wells for now and focus on the upper body portion.  When the normals are calculated the vehicle does best to be a single solid object as that is how the smoothness continuity is calculated... IF polys are detatched it will get a hard solid edge to it thus creating hard lines. Not unlike you can see on your tire wells.  The fenders issue is that you do not have enough polygons to create the correct curve going vertically meaning ====== ways across the horizontal plane.  In my experience its better to use more polys than you'd need because you can always merge vertices and remove excess polygons after the model is shaped and created, adding polys where they were not can be hit and miss on whether the calculations for the smoothness will go correctly.  I tend to take a blueprint of the vehicle and follow the contours of where/how the vehicle curves with the polygons just like you would for around the wheel well, but with every curve the bodywork has, as I said it can always have the vertices merged to reduce the polygons later on once the initial shape is corrected.

 

Goodluck, hope this helps

 

mk

[Jackie]

Every word helps from all of you, mostly from you mikey now. I didnt touched front part of the car. I did side, doors only and wheel wells a bit. I wanted to get flat,a bit curved doors. I tried using top view for adjusting verticles,front or back view doesnt help. So i understand that i need to delete wheel wells and fill that surface again to be flat with rest of the body. Then what you suggest to add more polys ,by edge/insert or to delete that group of polys and start create/strip with small triangle polys to cover the surface of doors and if there's to much of them to weld verticles to decrease number of extra ones?

I know that idea is to use rectangle with diagonal that it is represent an edge that can be flip to inner or outer edge and also the lines need to stay parallel horizontaly,verticaly and diagonally. I think i didnt be so precise,you said that doors look smooth?? Because to me they look awfull. The doors and curves on the hood(when middle part of the hood is up and the sides are a bit down and that slope,well its not slope but i cant find word to describe it, that troubles me and curves above front tire,where hood and sides are merging. I wanted to say this when i posted those pictures but i forgotted.

[MikeyPI]

I build them by placing the vertices one at a time but to each their own on how they go about creating them, some use strips and then fit them to the blueprint or whatever they use... Since I do not know the car very well I just found a picture of it online and made a fast (not perfect, but decent example to give you an idea of how to do it) model on top of it.  See the example I've included for a general idea of how to do it.  As I said in mine there are some places where I probrably put too many polys, but they can be merged later.

 

 

In the end it is up to each person on how they build their models but I would definately make sure that the body is one solid object when you go to calculate the normals for the model.. If it is not you will end up with breaks that do not look smooth not unlike your example has.