Here it is in action: And here is the new Dummy head cam: It has been released! Thanks to everyone who let me know about issues I overlooked! This kart will be under near-continuous work as I try to solve problems unique to vehicles of this size. The three primary configurations are: The first 4-wheel version, 250cc 1 cylinder 350cc 2 cylinder 1.5L I4 View attachment 1000068
Pretty neat seeing people try their hand at scratch jbeam What's your node naming like? I know that sounds like a weird question, but I see a ton of people make that mistake, and it ends up creating headaches when they try to fine tune their jbeam once it's built.
Frame nodes are "fra" + "r" or "l + an index which starts from the farthest front and gets larger toward the back. So the front square on this frame is: frar1, fral1 frar2, fral2 when looked at head on. The front and rear axles follow the standard naming convention, but are super simplified. The rear axle, for instance, is just 9 nodes since it is welded to the frame.
I got more info about the kart from my dad and found out that the engines that were mounted at one time or another were a Honda CN250 and then after that one cracked, a Honda CB350 K4. I plan on making both options available since both were on the kart at one point or another. He also let me know the ranges of tire sizes. When it had the CN250, it had 15x8 rear tires and 12x6 front. With the CB350, it had 22x11 on the rear and 18x8 on the front. Since these tires are not in the base game, I will be modelling them myself (do not expect amazing tire textures, lol). So my plan for the next time I post an update is to have the above at least jbeamed and to get the frame to be more stable.
Since most tires in game share textures, they were made in a way that they work on any size. So you can just copy any tire that has close enough dimensions and adjust the size, reuse the same materials, and it should look fine without having to make custom textures.
True. I actually took advantage of this fact with my street kart tires. For this one, I just decided to steal the mud tires from the 10x6 rims.
I got the jbeams done, so it's on to meshes. For the coilovers, I modified coilovers from the pigeon and the seat is from the piccolina. My next plan is to finish up the rear axle and hubs, then it's on to the engine and battery. The only issue with the flexbodies so far is that the coilovers do not compress in their normal direction, but in the z axis. I imagine this would be fixed with slidenodes, but I am having trouble getting those working properly. For those curious, I have a couple shots of the IRL kart. For simplicity's sake, for now, I am excluding the top bars that the coilovers attach to. And yes, the exhaust did end up melting the seat a bit
I figured I'd come in and show some progress on the engine mesh. I managed to find a model for the exact motorcycle the engine on this kart came from and luckily it had both the engine and the stock exhaust! The model had an incredibly high polycount and was a 3d scan of the actual motorcycle, so it's not the best. for beam. Because of this, I am using the existing mesh as reference so I can make a better and low poly version. Most of the work so far was isolating the engine and exhaust and closing up holes so it looks half decent in game. I am still learning modeling meshes that aren't modifications of existing meshes, so thus far I only replaced the header pipes and muffler tips. This will take me some time while I learn better modelling techniques. This is it in game. The engine textures look better in game than they do in blender, for sure. I am still learning how to do chrome in beam and still haven't finished the exhaust model, so I have yet to export the texture. Showing some of the holes left over from seperating the exhaust and engine from the rest of the model. Here is the current setup for the engine. The polys are all over the place and really uneven. Also, here is the uv map to illustrate just how bad it is (for beam)
Here is a quick video of it in action. It is really hard to control due to having no rear suspension and having a locked rear "diff". It also only has rear brakes, but they don't matter all that much. I haven't been able to keep it under control with a keyboard, mostly because it requires at least some throttle input to keep from spinning out due to too much weight shifting. After brainstorming over the weekend, I discovered I had some bad values in the weight and the power. I got those corrected and worked on some new meshes today, including: Chain and sprockets Handle Bars Not yet animated. Steering Linkage Updated Hubs Changed recline on the seat Added a floor This is a different color because it was the roof from an 89 escort. The rest was yellow because that was the paint my dad had lying around at the time and did not want it to rust The frame is a bit overbuilt and so it's made a bit strong aside from the front suspension. It was strong enough to house a 1.5 liter 4 cylinder engine and only required the installation of a stronger rear axle and putting a solid axle on the front. Expect a release fairly soon as I have the basics about done I may or may not animate the steering, but honestly, I am having too much fun just driving the thing around. I plan on expanding on this kart a lot since it has an extensive history of modification and I want to add some modifications of my own.
Yeah no there is no point saving this one, it should be way easier to model a new one from scratch than try to make this mess work
Absolutely. I am only keeping it as reference at this point. I am just putting it off since it's a bit beyond my abilities at the moment. For example, the exhaust was an honest attempt lol. The rest of the kart was fairly simple since it's all made of pipe. Here is the exhaust as an example. The pipes are not too bad, but the heat shield definitely needs work.
From the top post: To do: Jbeam: nearly done(not sure how to rate this one) Meshes: 75% Configs: 50% The meshes are taking a lot of time since I am a noob at this, so as soon as possible is the best guess I can provide. I am glad there's excitement around this, though!
Progress update for the day: Engine is more or less done. 8k vs 21k faces. I am not super happy with the heatsink fins, but they look good enough in-game. Still a lot to do, but now that the research phase is over, I can get to work on finishing this up. A more detailed to-do list: Tweak the frame mesh so it deforms better Right now, none of the pipes have subdivisions, so they deform very badly I can't guarantee that I can make it perfect, but I'll definitely try Add final touches to the frame This includes body panels I missed towards the front Adjust bubble tire jbeam They have way too much grip at the moment Wheelies should be all but impossible based on experience Even underpowering the engine to take into account age resulted in wheelies and little to no wheel spin. Right now, they are almost an exact copy of the 10x6 mud tire jbeam modified to make the bubble tires more squishy to absorb bumps better. I'll still include the grippy tires for the lols. Finish the 250cc engine Mesh is nonexistent at this point. The jbeam is done and it performs as expected. Add the smaller tires to go with the 250cc engine I am probably just going to use the ones I made for the street kart and change the texture Possibly other additional features (highly unlikely to be included with the initial release, but are things I want to do) additional engines Both realistic and joke engines (someone suggested a V10 Scintilla swap lol) different suspension setups both solid front axle and independent rear suspensions different frames to accommodate different suspension setups.
A lot of work done today. It's getting closer, but I am constantly finding things I can tweak to make it more fun to drive/look better. I still have yet to move on to the 250cc config due to this, but a good portion of what I worked on will apply to that config anyway. No estimated release date as of yet Today's update: Some more jbeam tweaks Forgot that coilovers have weight Adjusted coilovers to account for the weight change. Further fine-tuning rear tires More properly set up groups and deform groups so things look much better in a crash Separated less grippy tires into their own set Steering looks half decent when animating (not the handle bars, yet) Some mesh updates Refined the front suspension quite a bit Added front panels Added a brake mesh Added subdivisions on the pipes so they deform better Made the pipes look more pipe-like Adjusted engine mesh to look less bad Adjusted steering center and tie-rod positions Further improved front hubs I think that's all, I went all over the place today lol The new front panels (yes, that is the brake handle from the cb350 being used as a brake pedal lol) Spoiler The brake Spoiler The steering at neutral and full Spoiler The updated front suspension arms Spoiler
