This was an old personal project that I was working on to render a classic 57 Chevy. Since GregBlast has been working on a node and beam editor, it has given me inspiration to convert this over to work in BeamNG as an old 57 Chevy beater. The kind of stock car racing that I used to watch as a kid and loved was at the local track on Saturday nights where the mechanic down the street would strip out and old classic and bang the heck out of it for a few bucks and a trophy. This is also after the same style as Flatout racing which I liked ( except for the many bugs ). I've never been a very fast modeler so this project will take me a while, especially when it comes to creating JBeams. The really fun part will be the texturing when it comes to adding dents, scratches, and rust; oh yes, rust-o-plenty. Here's a video to show my progress. Still rough of coarse, but I'm learning.
The 57 Bel air is one of my all time favorite cars! Will the only option be a rustbuket, or will there be a more pristine option? I will be keeping an eye on this project though.
If I can get this working in-game and I'm happy with the results, then yes there will be a street version, maybe even with some fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror I've always been a real classic fan. There's just something about the old classics that made them look so cool and unique. If this project comes out the way I envision it, then I'd also like to model cars like the old GTO Goat, 40 Ford Coupe, Chevy Nomad, 62 Chevy Impala ( hard top convertible, not the bubble top, hate those ), Mercury led sled, etc..
Hey, don't forget that these old cars are a lot weaker than modern ones. The older cars just crumple like aluminum foil. They don't have as much reinforcement and safety features as more modern cars.
That '59 Chevy is not really an accurate representation of the era. Those cars were notoriously underbuilt and had a crappy X-frame design. The '57 wouldn't fare that much better in a crash, but it wouldn't fold up quite that horribly. In low speed impacts those old behemoths would total a modern car. The thing to keep in mind is that the entire car back then was made out of the same strength of steel. They didn't really have crumple zones. There was no high strength steel strategically bracing the passenger cell like we see in modern cars. So in higher speed impacts they're absolute deathtraps, but <20 mph against a modern car and the old car will be victorious.
I saw an accident where a 1970's Holden 1 Tonner hit a 2007 Hyundai Getz. The Hyundai was written off, and the Holden just needed a new headlight & grille.
Newer cars dont have a whole lot of reinforcement. Quite the opposite, they purposely design the front and rear to crumple to act like a giant airbag for the whole car. In a front on collision the entire engine bay deforms (and on newer cars it deforms in such a way to attempt to drop the engine out the bottom of the chassis rather than through the dash) and absorbs a large amount of the impact.
I think a lot of what made cars so cool back then is that aerodynamics and gas mileage didn't play into car design very much. The dodge charger is shaped like a brick aerodynamically but it is a very cool looking brick because that's what they set out to make, a cool car. Now most cars are shaped like pills because it's more aerodynamic and gets better mileage, and they all look shite.
Thank you, sir. I was going to say this but I'm really glad to see that someone else can explain that this test was a setup to make old cars looks as unsafe as possible.
And the steel is also old on that car, it simply doesn't have the structural rigidity it used to have (and maybe even the engine is taken out too). But yeah, they weren't safe, environmental friendly, BUT they were cool
One thing is for sure, at least car companies at that time took more pride in what they made. You could tell one make and model from another from a mile away as opposed to nowadays where everything looks the same and the only way to tell one model from another is the emblem.... I would also like to see what today's cars would look like when they become classics. There would probably be nothing left but a couple of pieces of thin, rusty metal, and plastic, plastic, plastic. Well here's a status update. There's a huge difference between designing a model for subdivision surface rendering, and designing a model for game assets. I've been going through and optimizing the mesh the best I could by adding loops where needed, adjusting poly flow, and reducing polys where I can and importing the model to Torque every so often to check for smoothing issues. It's not easy optimizing this mesh because there aren't too many flat, planar surfaces. Everything is rounded and there's lots of tricky details. I guess that's the price you pay for going classic hehe. Once's the body is done, I may have to go back and re-typo where I need to. There's always normal maps to add details and help with rounded surfaces, but there are limits to what they can do. The most difficult part of the main body is done, now I'm off to finish all the interior details. Now I know why it takes so long to build one of these things, I have a hard drive full of reference photos showing every possible part, seam, and hidden detail possible.
Just an update to show a bit more progress. I've got the main body boxed in now and the hood and fenders separated. Created a roll cage and finished up the base interior. Also tweaked the dash to hopefully make it as true to scale and proportioned as possible since I'm doing this all by eye. Next up is the frame, suspension and drive train.
Looks Great, Would you ever think of doing a gasser version? jacked up, front end chopped off and huge slicks on the rear.
Thanks all. Yeah I've thought about it. It wouldn't take much to make a gasser out of it. Just a changes to the suspension, tires, and maybe add some drag bars. Like I've said, "IF" I can manage to get this thing working in-game in a satisfactory way, I'll give it a shot. Oh, I guess I'd have to get rid of the rust and dents too...
