UPDATES ON THE TEMPESTA'S INTERIOR --- Post updated --- roughly 90% of the interior has been updated to match the quality of the exterior. I've also taken care not to move too far away from what the theme is as well. Overall the interior now feels more full and purposeful while adding in aesthetic touches that would normally be found in a Italian super car from this era.
Made some progress on the exterior and interior of the Tempesta. The pillars and headliner have been completely remastered and are now much more refined looking to match the new interior. I've also been doing some work on the exterior, mostly the rear end which is almost done being remodeled. I also plan to remodel the front and sides as I feel there is more that can be done to improve these areas of the car. I hope to have the rear and front ends completely finished by some time next week .
May have underestimated the amount of time it was going to take me to finish the front and rear ends of the Tempesta. This is mainly due to me focusing on one of my other real life projects which I should really balance better with this one. I was unhappy with the kinda sloppy and not entirely realistic job I did on the front part of the frame so I'm going to completely redo it. As for new progress, I've added side skirts to compliment the front lip and wide fender flares on the 350 GT model which I think makes it look much more polished. I've also fixed what I've called the Tempestas "Mouth cancer" on the sides of it's front end trim. This was due to it being pretty jagged and nasty looking as this part of the car really hasn't been touched since I had first started working on it. It is slightly chunkier than it previously was however I think it looks way better than it previously did.
imo the front end really only needs the pop-up headlights to be redone, other than that some added stuff in the grill would tie it in better along with what you already have
Agreed, my suggestion would be to do away with the popups entirely (not because pop ups arent cool, but simply because the pop up headlights available in Automation suck balls) and just make fixed headlights that kinda hug the top curve of the fender to give it a sort of sleek but wide styling (i suck at describing this)
Yeah I've never been entirely happy with the popups as they currently are. I plan on redoing them after the chassis and grille have been redone. There are a few reasons that I haven't done this. If this car were to use the lights which are mounted next to the grille as high and low beam headlights the car would be in violation of headlight height regulations globally. In the USA, 24 inches from the ground to the center of the headlight is the minimum allowed height for any vehicle sold here. If I were to make lights that hugged the body as you suggested, It would likely end up looking pretty bad as they would have to be very far up the front of car for them to be legal. Take the new countach for example. The flush lenses at the front of the old car were mounted low because they could be as it only housed parking lights and the indicators. They clearly tried doing this same design on the new car however because they can't do popups easily anymore, they had to mount them way up on the front of the car and imo it looks very bad, even in person. Further more having the popups replaced with regular lights goes against the grain of every Italian supercar made at that time. I do completely agree with you on automation's popup headlights looking terrible. This is why I made mine out of 3D fixtures though even those look pretty iffy. My plan is to release two versions of each trim, one with the Popups up and one with them down. I'd love to have working ones as doing so would cut the likely massive file size in half and improve the usability of this mod however this is very unlikely to happen.
Hmm, any chance you could slide the .car file to one of the configs in here so I could try and play around with the design a little? I'm thinking something a little more like having lights form this sort of shape Similar to how the daytime running lights look on the F40, Except at the current height of the popup lights to allow for necessary road clearance and visibility kinda like this or even maybe slightly higher along the vehicle if needed. Similar to the Ferrari 365 GTB/4, a little up from the tip of the front bumper but should work just fine, and yes while removing the popup headlights would make italian designers spin in their graves, it's kinda the only other option besides keeping the current popup lights in the state that they are right now, as for automation standards the custom ones in place are likely the best you'll get in terms of popups
Automation has the ability to make fixtures move before you port it over to BeamNG, when your ready i'll take a look at it and add the code into the car to get the pop-ups, steering wheel and other stuff to work too. while im at it i can also change the startup and engine sounds as well.
Oh Cool, That'd be awesome! Remade the popups using mods and in my opinion it's way better than it looked before. I did have to use some 3D fixtures for the stuff inside the headlight housing so idk if that could complicate things when trying to make them function however this was really the only solution I could come up with as the housing has no dedicated inserts or lighting. I also placed a invisible closed version which I've made visible to show what they'd look like when down. When taking a look around the car in Beamng I spotted a few areas that could use a bit more polishing besides the unfinished parts like the grille and chassis. I estimate that if I can get some more free time than usual next week I'll be able to knockout these few issues and move on to making the rest of the planned trim levels and modified versions of the car by the end of next week.
Finished the front grille however I still need to work on the chassis amongst other bits that could use some polishing up. I thought a Ferrari inspired grille would fit the car nicely however I am unsure if I like the lower grille design as it has a small lip that doesn't sit flush with the body and is "tearing" in a few spots. I think that the front splitter needs some work too as it is just slightly too flat at the front which looks a bit angular and weird. I also changed the rim size to be .5 inches larger than they were.
Decided that I really didn't like the way the front air dam looked so I remade about 80% of it. It now more realistically follows the body lines of the car as well as looking much more realistic. I might end up slightly changing it some more but as it is I think it looks much better than what I had previously made. Also remade the body molding on the sides of the car, put a Pantera inspired antenna on the roof, and replaced the rear spoiler with a rear wing. The tire size and suspension have also received some minor adjustments that have made the car handle less like a semi truck. I should also note that the wide fenders and matching air dam pictured are entirely unique to the 1st facelift GT models. The narrow body cars will receive different air dams and there will be other wide body factory and non factory models that feature uniquely styled kits.
Well I said I "might end up changing it slightly." Ended up remaking the air dam again so that none of the cars actual bodywork is shown in front of it and it now follows the body lines even better. Still not finished with it as the front splitter part needs to be slightly altered to conform better with the shape of the new air dam. Keep in mind that this part of the car is made with 100% 3D fixtures so it's been a constant battle of lining stuff up correctly or correctly enough to make it look smooth and even. I am also busy fixing a few other things such as the inner wheel well guards which were not really up to my standard of quality anymore. I've also been somewhat revising the lore for the car that I have written up. The car will have started production in 1967 and would basically take the place of the Lamborghini Miura and the De Tomaso Pantera in the real world and would be Civetta's first mid engined road legal car. I do also want the early model cars to make it into the American market under the Bruckell/Soliad name. I've tossed around the idea of Bruckell wanting to have something to beat Gavril in the racing and performance car market while also having a halo car for the brand. They wouldn't have the Resources to develop the entire car themselves so they reached out to Civetta. Civetta would not have an established dealer or parts network in the U.S.A at the time, which is why the car was never imported there during it's first two model years. Essentially an agreement was made where Bruckell and Civetta would both fund the construction of a small assembly plant and Wearhouse somewhere in the southwestern united states. Bare Tempesta chassis and other parts would be shipped over from Civetta in Italy to these facilities. Bruckell was actually encouraged by Civetta to supply their own engines and transmissions as both had concerns about using Civettas V8's as they feared that a V8 that was only 3.5L in displacement at max wouldn't go over well with American consumers who preferred larger displacement engines that had lots of torque. It would be badged as the Bruckell-Civetta Phoenix and established the relation that the two brands would have with each other for the next few decades. I personally like the idea but would appreciate some feedback on it if y'all think it should or shouldn't be done.
In my pursuit of trying to make this car the best it reasonably can be I have decided to completely redo the chassis. It is heavily based off of the Detomaso Pantera's chassis as imo it just makes sense to use it due to the Tempesta already being heavily based off of it. Currently I have only been working on the rear section as it is arguably the more simple area of the chassis in terms of how complex it is geometrically. These recent plans do pose two somewhat major issues that I am not quite skilled enough to deal with properly which I will now list: 1. Suspension. Since I'm using the Pantera as a basis for the chassis the suspension components also have to be replicated as they are beefier and differently arranged than automation's double wishbone setup. Since automation fixtures are static the suspension won't be able to show any movement which for a car that has fairly noticeable control arms and an anti roll bar that is mounted to the back of the frame isn't really too ideal. I don't know if there is any way to make these move or not however if anyone does and they'd like to help me with this I'd very much appreciate it. It's not something that needs immediate attention as the chassis and car(s) aren't finished yet so It will be a bit before it's ready for any extra work. 2. Bruckell V8 Engines. Lore wise the Tempesta was sold in the USA with Bruckell badging and drivetrains until Civetta established their own network of dealerships in the states. It would use Bruckell's 378 and 448 cubic inch V8's though ideally I'd not want to replicate these engines in automation but rather have the proper specs, sounds, parts, and models for them as well as doing the same with Civetta's V8's on the later model Tempesta's. Again, any help with this would be appreciated and just like with the suspension this isn't something that would need addressed just yet.
Slightly small update on the frame here. Just added the beams connecting the top two bars of the rear frame to the bottom. These will also be used to mount the upper control arms however I want to focus on the spindles first as they are somewhat complex compared to the rest of the suspension bits. Lower control arms are 90% finished with the only things left to add being the mounts for the coilovers and the fasteners. Extra details like fasteners and weld beads will be added once I've got the chassis completed.
Spindles are taking shape. Had to move the suspension back a bit and adjusted some things slightly to make the spindle and hubs (almost) centered with the wheels. I've taken some creative freedom with how the spindles look as they aren't easy to model with automation's 3D fixture system. However, they still should look good when they are finished as the ones on most base game cars aren't even nearly as detail heavy which makes sense as they aren't really something you see from the outside on most cars. Below is the Bolide's rear suspension for comparison.
