Hello there, I just wanted to get into modding and took a look at the "Introduction to Vehicle Creation"-Wiki Page. I tried to reproduce the given example, but I even failed the tutorial . All I currently got is: - the "info.json" file - and the JBEAM-File (with the information about nodes, beams...) in my vehilce-folder. But nothing shows up ingame. My questions: - Do I only need proper info.json and JBEAM files to let the vehicle show up ingame or do I miss something like a DAE-file, Materials or a Picture of the vehicle? - How can I create JBEAM-files with Notepad++ (I read this several times but I can only create a JBEAM-file with the "Blender-Export-JBEAM-Script" so far and then copy or edit it.) - Do I really have to cross every face on my vehicle with two edges in Blender? Or can I use the "F"-Key wich only creates one edge. Sorry for the very basic questions you heard a million times..
That's great that you are getting into modding! You do need a .DAE file and a Materials.CS file for your vehicle to show up in-game. When you SaveAs, save it with the extension .JBEAM instead of .txt (You may need to select "Save as type: All Files" before typing the extension). Sometimes I'll get lazy and copy a Jbeam file from an existing vehicle. All I need to do is rename the file and replace the contents of it with my own Jbeam. You don't "have to" cross every face with two edges, although it's a good guideline for maximum rigidity. When you start creating more complex Jbeams, you'll find that it's not always as important. Hopefully these answer most of your questions. If you need me to explain anything further, please don't hesitate to ask. Good luck!
Also that wiki page is a bit outdated. You might need to put your car in my documents/beamng.drive/vehicles folder instead. Disclaimer: This is a working directory, if texture cache is cleared or beamng.drive is updated there's a chance you could lose your car, so please backup.
Hey EcoNadder77, thank you so much for your helpful answers! This was exactly what I was looking for, but now I want to reach my goal of letting the test-project show up ingame (or at least (especially) in the vehicle browser!). So I exported the Collada-File (.dae) in Blender and put it into my vehicle-folder. I don't know how to use or create a material-file yet but maybe this is not crucial, because I could visualise the skeleton of my vehicle in the vehicle debug menu or view information about excisting nodes in the same menu, so that this would be my "visual aspect" of the vehicle. If I'm wrong with my thought and a material-file is crucial, could you please give an example of such a file and how I have to embed it into my project D: ? And I asked myself if I need a .pc file even though I have no real "parts" or a colour or tuning parameters. Well, you see I am a real beginner :'D. --- Post updated --- yes yes yes. Thank you , it's working as I thought it should be. Puh. My brain has stopped destroing itself for a moment...
To clarify, you need a .dae and materials.cs file in order to have your model show up in-game. Without them, BeamNG will automatically make the Jbeam visible. So, you will have something visible in-game, just not the model. .pc files are used to create configs of your vehicle. At this stage of your project, those are not necessary. Here's a helpful link to the Vehicle Materials page: LINK Please let me know if anything in that link is confusing.
Ok, I know what you are saying. This is clearly the next step for my project. But I'm glad that I now got to the point where I can select the vehicle in the vehicle browser and watch the "visible JBEAM". Thanks for the link, I'll have a look at it!
So I tried to add a material and a texture to my testobject (wich btw is pretty ugly, but it's a functional test anyway) to actually make it "visible" ingame. The result is not the best. I can load the vehicle ingame, but it's now completely invisible.. So I don't even see the nodes and beams anymore but it's definitly there and I can crash into it with another car for example. Does anyone know what the problem could be? Actually I just followed the instructions on the Vehicle Creation"-Wiki Page. I'll upload all my files that I currently got in my vehilce folder here..
Well your DAE file is only 759 bytes big, which means it probably is blank. Make sure you select the objects in blender before exporting, and select "selection only" tickbox on the left (when choosing the DAE name, after clicking export)
Oh, you are right! Apparently I forgot to select the object... I don't know how this could happen, but thank you very much! --- Post updated --- So now it shows up ingame, but it looks like this (picture). Hmm the cutouts or at least the baking in blender is kind of bad and the placement of the texture ingame ist also not perfect so that this black areas appear. I also don't know much about blender. Is there some kind of option to reach a better and cleaner result? And why is the texture misaligned ingame? So many questions..
Hmm it's hard to say from the pictures, I'm not even sure what shape your car is meant to be? But the latest texture you posted is different to the one a few posts above. Is it possible you are using an older model that is mapped to the previous texture, rather than the latest one? Oh also make sure you apply rotation/translation/scale before you export in blender. Ctrl-a.
Haha, yeah I created a very weird shape. but the shape is fine ingame . I redid the texture, so that it would not overlap on the PNG (I thought it may be bad). But yeah, it's indeed an "old model" of the vehicle when I think about it. I didn't change anything about it, but I imported the dae several times and so on. I didn't know that this would cause such a problem oO. Thanks again!
