(imported from here) //NOTE: It's NOT SUGGESTED to mod the original vehicles DAE. If you want to create parts or mods for a vehicle, use MULTIDAE instead!\\ >> Multidae tutorial - Introduction-to-MultiDae Why? If an update changes something in the original DAE, you mod will become outdated. What you will learn: How to correctly Import & Export an Official Vehicle without breaking the smoothing group Requirements: Knowledge of Blender Semi-Advanced knowledge of 3D Modelling 1. Why when I import certain official vehicles in Blender those looks weird like this? Some vehicles are modelled in '3D Studio Max'. 3D Studio Max offers some features which aren't avalaible in Blender. One of them is 'Smoothing Group'. It allows the artist to define the hard edges without actually splitting the edges. Blender doesn't enable this automatically. It can be enabled by following the instructions in this post: https://www.beamng.com/threads/how-...icial-vehicles-via-blender.14793/#post-546913 Or by using the 'Edge Split' modifier, which actually modifies the mesh. When you import an official vehicle made in 3D Studio Max in Blender, the smoothing groups won't be read, so it will appear all lumpy because it doesn't have hard edges. 2. Solution An easy solution to this is to add an edge split modifier by yourself. NOTE: Edge Split is an automated modifier. The result will never be the exact same as the original vehicle. To start, select an object. Go in the 'Modifiers' panel and add an 'Edge Split' modifier. Usually angles of 50° or 60° works nicely. The result is evident: To quickly apply the same modfier on all the objects: Keep the object with the modifier selected Press A twice: The first one will Deselect all. The second will Select all. The object with the modifier will have a different colour because it's the object we manually selected (Active Object) Press CTRL+L. A 'Make Links' window will appear. Press the 'Modifiers' button. Congratulations, you just added the same modifier too all the objects. 3. Exporting correctly Files > Export > Collada Make sure to have the 'Apply Modifier' option selected. Then you are ready to export your .dae.
Achgtung! Blender does in fact support smoothing groups without using the edge split modifier. To activate the feature, go to the Object Data tab in the Properties panel with your desired object selected (the three vertexes connected by lines icon) and check the "Auto Smooth" box under the "Normals" group. The angle value below the check box acts the same as in the Edge Split modifier, and it also observes edges marked as sharp on the model with Edges>Mark Sharp in edit mode. The default angle value of 30 degrees seems to work quite well, at least on the Super model. If you want to quickly apply this to every part of a vehicle, select all the parts in object mode (just hit A to select all), then check the "Auto Smooth" box, right click the box, and select "Copy To Selected" to apply the value to all the selected parts as well. (You can do this for any value field in Blender, in fact, to easily apply values and options to multiple objects!)
Thanks a lot! I was exporting the new hopper to blender to make nice Pictures, idk and I found the edge split mod out but I didn´t knew how to apply it to multiple objects at once. But do you know how to correctly set up the materials with the textures (The node Setup) ? Or at least can you say what the textures are? There are: hopper_XXX_d diffuse hopper_XXX_n normal hopper_XXX_s specular? But what does it control exactly? The roughness of the glossy shader or the mix between glossy and diffuse? hopper_XXX_g (Light) Emission hopper_XXX_r no clue, but it´s only 1 single completely transparent Image file in the Hoppers data Correct me if I´m in the wrong thread.
Yeah, not exactly the correct thread. That's something specific to rendering. Anyhow, I used this setup on one of my recent projects:
How do I find the vehicle models themselves? (Where are they in the files?) I understand everything else, except where the files are.
I think you need to just go in the Import folder, then find the directory for the vehicles and click on the vehicle there
This is incredibly helpful and makes smoothing things out so much easier, wish I came across it earlier.
