Back home so managed to get some work done on the Focus. There were some area's that I wasn't happy with, which I now cleaned up and detailed some further. The front fenders were partially remade, some detail added to the doors and now I'm adding more stuff to the engine bay. The engine sits a bit lower in the engine bay now, I've remade the exhaust so it looks like the real one and I've made the power steering fluid reservoir, top engine mount and some more body structure where everything is mounted to. Also been reworking the strut towers (not finished yet).
Added some more detail in the engine bay. Noticed there were some structural beams missing which the real Focus has. Also made the grill and more cleaning up at the rear. Quite happy with all the cleaning up so far, as it looks better and has less vertices. Now not sure what to model next. Maybe stop modelling and start with JBeam? Any suggestions?
I'd suggest to replace that grille with a texture. Will make it deform way better & won't glitch out when damaged
Tried to start with the JBEAM. If I read everything correctly and understand everything, the car should be made out of nodes and beams. For this I use blender to give the correct position of every node, which I then can add to the JBEAM file with Notepad++. Now, for a start, tried to create a somewhat decent looking beginning, but ..... So for the more experienced guys... I´ve tried looking at several existing models, but the Jbeam skeleton seems very complicated. I´m also wondering if every part which can fall of (or 'break') should have its own Jbeam? I know the current skeleton won't support itself, but I'm just wondering if I'm starting the correct way, before I waste a lot of time on a skeleton that won't work.... Thanks in advance!
Jbeam is very complex, reason why many mods die is that it takes whole different kind of studying and skill to produce beam structure than it takes to make a 3d model and to get nodes and beams, it is best to start with something simple, like a bucket, bench, cube and so on, slowly figuring out the idea behind the node beam structure. These will be your closest friends: https://wiki.beamng.com/JBeam_Introduction https://wiki.beamng.com/JBeam_Reference Also it might be good to check out some automation car, those have simpler jbeam, but doing simpler versions at first and gradually moving to more complex helps as with less nodes and beams to worry about you can focus learning the idea instead of being overwhelmed. With this you can export your node beam structure with parameters to jbeam file from Blender, also it can read node beam structures from jbeam files, but that part is bit limited at the moment, file needs to be very precise format to be able to be read into Blender, however exporting works fine and it speeds up things a lot at the beginning: https://www.beamng.com/threads/blender-addon.56981/ Node groups is also something you need to learn and understand, also how node group is one that is used in flexbody definition, which is again how your 3d model is bind to skeleton. Remember that beams are there only to hold nodes in place! Also, more nodes you will have, less weight node can have, light nodes are really problematic for stability and good structural strength, so you need to plan node placement carefully as that will also affect weight distribution, cog height etc. You don't define car weight anywhere, it is sum of node weight of all nodes. Chassis flex and deformation is result of your node and beam structure, you set all those beam spring and node weights, trying to balance all of that as well as node density related to your 3d model vertex density, it is like juggling really many whole different size and shape objects, so it takes time to learn and even more to master. So start doing benches, garbage cans, street lamps, all sort of simple forms in node beam structure, make tens of them, that is only real way to get that structure.
We need more people like this guy above, calmly explains it for people who are new, instead of cursing them for not understanding. Thank you-
Thanks for the very clear and comprehensive explanation. Will take some time to learn it correctly I suppose..! --- Post updated --- Maybe later, but first this model in 3-door, 5-door and wagon variants.
Jbeam is waaaay more complicated than I ever anticipated...! For now I'm going to try to get it to work with a modified Sunburst Jbeam (if this isn't allowed, feel free to say so ) After lots of trying and game crashing, I managed to get it in game (very buggy and missing parts), but it feels awesome to have something in game that I've built myself! (the 3D part at least ) Next: many, many hours of finetuning.
Thanks! Found 2 problems: - some parts haven't got a material selected to it (that's why its missing), will be fixed (done for today... haha!) - forgot to copy the textures to the vehicle map.. that's partly fixed now!
