Need Help with Carset for Aero88 mod...

[JRom]

Hi. I'm James and I'm new to this forum and NR2003. I've having a blast with the Aero88 and my other favorite GN63 mod. However, I decided I wanted to make the Aero88 cars more early 80's insetead of trying to alter the look in a texture. I have many years experience with modding and creating texurtes for other games such as RedBaron3D, Panzer Elite, Flight Simulator X, and most recently Wings Over Flanders Fields...so I'm comfortable with skinning and texture. 3D modeling... not so much. But I tried and had some pretty good success after watching several videos. I managed to take the original Chevy model from the Aero88 collection and create the 4 cars I want to work with.. Buick, Olds, Chevy and Ford....the Pontiac will come from either the Buick or Chevy in texture form.

So... is there anyone that can help me take these models and make them usable in the game? I've pulled out what's left of my hair at 55 trying to learn how the model becomes texture and all that. What someone with a lot of experience with Blender could do in an hour, will take me a year. I'd be happy to work with someone just to get the texture mapping and make the models usable.

Thank you!

James


Here are the pics of the 4 models I created... Buick, Olds, Chevy and Ford.

 

[mtblillie]

So, unfortunately, making a mod is a very complex process for NR2003. You have a limit on vertices, you have to deal with LODs, making an interior, and then modelling damage, and then you have to compile all that into a mod that the game will be able to use. Mystical has done a lot of research in the process and made several videos of his work on his ICR mod. His first video of the process is here.

This is a mod that I think is needed to fill a hole in the historical genre of NR2003 so I hope that you stick with it, but does seem to be a lengthy and difficult process, which will probably include more hair pulling.

 

[JRom]

Thank you for the reply. Yes, I see that....it's a serious uphill for this game. I have experience in the past, I've made complex mods for Red Baron 3D, but mostly file editing, bitmap creation, some ASCII coding, etc. But no modeling. I'm ok with trying, wish I could team-up with someone more experienced that can handle some of this modeling stuff, while I do other parts like textures and scripting (I'd have to learn).

I agree...hence why I'm motivated. I owned an 82 Cutlass back in the 80s, so these years are a little special to me. Not having them for use is a hole needing repair.

Right now I'm stuck on UV Mapping... I just can't figure out how to fix the mapping of the parts I hard to adjust or remove.

The mapping is a mess on the right side of the car.

 

[mtblillie]

Yeah, 3D modelling seems like it is a harder part of the process, and there is a lot of it, not to mention that the game will start to crash if you put too much detail. I wish I could help but I haven't dipped into 3D modelling yet. There are quite a few guys on here with experience who may be able to help with some problems, such as @Mystical and @DaleTona75, and over at Stunod there are some more guys like Rogue or Martinrace that may be able to help. Partnering up is a great way to work on a mod and has been successful many times, but finding people that will work on it with you can be tough because most people don't have the time to commit to a large project such as this.

 

[JRom]

Got it figured out. I watched yet another tutorial for UV mapping and during the tutorial, I realized you can move the faces around on the UV Map template... and manipulate them. The seas parted in my head like whoa!!! And off I went, correting all the major issues. I am in the middle of reworking the mesh to the model/texture now. So I have a better fit in a lot of places considering how much I've changed the original model. Here is the Oldsmobile... which may or may not make it into the 4, but I am learning on it.

My Pizza Ranch 82 Olds...

 

[JRom]

Moving along