WIP 1996 Cherrier Soléne

After few of my "perfect" engine swaps in the game by tweaking those JBEAM text files, i was completely confident i can make my own car mod from the ground up. How hard could it be? Turns out, pretty frigin hard. I found total new appreciation for mod creators, pushing out one quality car after another and even bigger understanding for those who lost the spark when creating it.

Few days ago, i knew little of blender, worse yet, i didnt know anything about BeamNG file structure. moding practicies or material work. Yet, my work began.
And my target car was already decided, my first car, 1996 Renault Mégane with 1.6 8V. Man, it was average car even when new but the comfort of torsion rear suspension was hardly matched and i would still drive it today, even more so when there are almost no left on the roads. (even here in central Europe, those cars starting to be pretty rare to see)
Spy photo:


My plan was clear, find some model online, put it in the game if possible, otherwise just copy some dimensions of it and done.
I couldnt belive my eyes, there are practicaly none 3d models of this car. Only one i found was priced at 100 USD. You could almost buy the car itself for that price. There is a mod of this generation Scénic on Modland, and even the fact that those two cars are indentical apart of bigger body, didnt help me feeling sad.

So be it, i will make the body myself! Its just a few shapes together. I couldnt even find a good blueprint picture of the 4 door, so i was working with blurry, cartoon pictures of profiles of this machine. Yet a was making progress, i threw myself into raging waters of Blender modeling, knowing pretty much nothing of it before, apart some filmans86 videos that i watch to fall asleep sometimes.



It dawned on me a day later that it would be easier to make a whole shape and then slice it into individual parts for better fit, well, failiure is teaching me for now. To get to this stage took me like 20 hours btw. (with what i know now i could do it now in like 18)
I was very proud of the different colors so it would be clear whar is what.

I knew from the start that i would me making a lore-friendly vehicle so i wasnt really following the exact dimensions (even if i could somehow) and its a good excuse: Im not making the original, this is my version of it, thats why its crap, no other reason.




It was about here in my progress when i accidentaly learned about normals and faces. Pretty big rework of the model was needed aand it took like a day.
I stole the front suspension from late Pessima and the rear one is torsion axle from Cherrier Tango, made to fit. Those ale like a prototype placeholders (that means its stayin there forever). I used it mainly to make the body aroud it and to get the sense of scale and wheel placement.

And with further help from Pessima and its body JBEAM, there it was:


Engine was first 1.8l Pessima I4 but it was making too much power for my taste, especialy with 800 kg ghost car, so i opted for 1.2 and 1.4 from Tango (for now). But let me tell you, seeing your own model driving around is a great feeling.
It wast without a fight tho. I somehat couldnt make a rear hub to spawn the same selection of wheels like the front. So i duplicated front hubs and made then fit and work with the rear suspention, mainly just offset, but hey, it works.

I was a fool when i picked this car, on of the roudest cars that Renauld did ever made. I sould start with Renault 19, that is pretty much a wedge compared to this.

Hey! You! I know my topology is crap, ok? I learned the term two days ago.Its pretty much all made by hand and its been yet reworked (i didnt say improved, did i?) Somehow i duplicated every vertex of the trunk at the exact place where the originals were. I was unable to select those out and delete them so i reworked pretty much all of it, looks half decent now.


Im trying to make my own taillights and i wanted to make even headlights but one test fit from Pessima and it was decided, i conformed the hood and front bumper a bit and filed down the lights mounting plates, but that is straight fit. I doubt i would make something better myself. Taillight would be still homemade tho.

For jbeams im using heavily reworked Pessima files, some shapes are wildly different, and that would be a thing for right now. I yet dont know abou interrior, im little bit exited to see if i can make something myself.

Right now im trying to learn how to work with materials, how latches and beams work (they mostly dont), creating a mod info and different versions. There i so much stuff to get into from out of the blue but im loving the process and progress.

I Would like to make the mod to be complete and kinda nice, maybe even create more likeable coupe or cabrio version of this car. But only future will tell.
If you have any tips, tricks, cheats or comments on any part of the process, please share them with me, i would like to make just a few more of these (look at me talking, not even making one yet)




Thats the progress so far, its like 40 clean hours, many mistakes but many things learned. To anyone making mods, im, again, sending my deepest regards, thoughts and prayers.

 

Actually awesome progress! I really wish you succeed with this project!

 

oh le banger

 

we do eht certified automobile

 

Mecane

 

If i could I would have helped you, but you already outskilled me by far

 

top 10 mods of time all

 

Hell yeah!!

 

God damn the topology is fabulous

 

i actually have a phase 1 megane

 

What do you mean? A mod? A model? Or IRL car?

 

as a renault fan, this is some good news!

 

irl, i really wish there was a mod previously, but this will fix that

 

I NEED THIS

 

I hope this will release soon but take your time !
Liberté égalité renault coupé !

 

AhhAh (ad ends)

 

it isnt a peugeot, but it is french, so we do eht

 

ik its a request but......please could you make a crashed version like the one from Shaun Of The Dead (my fav Movie)

 

Wrong UV and wrong collision mesh but yea. Also i didnt do much work on it. Same same, cleaning lines, snaping and mergin verticies and every 5 minutes watching tutorial on a technique i overhear somewhre. Also realized that there is pretty much finite count of faces/poygons, that didnt ocured to me before nad it would be shame if someone had a bad framerate because of this car. So i got the count down on some areas that didnt need ton of detail. Im gonna learn about normal maps next, to add details not connected to processing power.

And im still on the fence about engines. From Pessima and placeholders from Tango works alright but engines from Picnic are more closer to what the car is and even similiar years. Well, maybe time to contact lucas? I would like to have them also because they sound absolutely god tier like. Smallest would be probably 1.4, then 1.6 and 2.0 and i was also experimenting with V6 but that would be more like Safrane territory. And i want to have a diesel in there. Renault put those 1.9s into almost every car imaginable. I had it in Volvo...

 

OH MY GOD I

TS BRILLIANT TYSM BRO (best of luck on the mod btw)