CAR AND BIKE LOVERS THREAD - MARK II

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Comments

  • music2u4umusic2u4u Posts: 2,822
    edited October 2012

    betsy662 said:
    I see that, I think I may be able to justify it, so will be looking into that today.


    That's what I said too...I figure, I would spend that on one or two cars alone. With this, I can do lots of cars. Many will be pretty nice. Even the bad ones I can fix in Sketchup. The Pontiac Safari loaded with only one tire on, the bumpers and tailgate were in the front seat, tthe windshield was in the floorboard, and it had all these flat planes all over it. I fixed it all up in about 30 minutes and exported it. Then the fun started. Well worth the $22.00 Betsy. If you need any help with it all, Cherokee and I will help you. You must get the TXDWorkshop and the RWAnalyzer, both freebies, also though to get the textures and unlock the meshes from game mode. Without them, you would miss out on a lot. They are simple, small standalones. Cherokee posted the links a few pages back. Oh...btw...the version 3 of ZModeler won't do this so you don't need it. I tried it, will not import .dff files.

    :-)

    Post edited by music2u4u on
  • CherokeeCherokee Posts: 292
    edited December 1969

    music2u4u said:
    betsy662 said:
    I see that, I think I may be able to justify it, so will be looking into that today.


    That's what I said too...I figure, I would spend that on one or two cars alone. With this, I can do lots of cars. Many will be pretty nice. Even the bad ones I can fix in Sketchup. The Pontiac Safari loaded with only one tire on, the bumpers and tailgate were in the front seat, tthe windshield was in the floorboard, and it had all these flat planes all over it. I fixed it all up in about 30 minutes and exported it. Then the fun started. Well worth the $22.00 Betsy. If you need any help with it all, Cherokee and I will help you. You must get the TXDWorkshop and the RWAnalyzer, both freebies, also though to get the textures and unlock the meshes from game mode. Without them, you would miss out on a lot. They are simple, small standalones. Cherokee posted the links a few pages back. Oh...btw...the version 3 of ZModeler won't do this so you don't need it. I tried it, will not import .dff files.

    :-)

    That's why I don't export 3ds files, car parts are in the front seat. Then you have to go through the extra trouble to put them back where they should be. I use to export 3ds file until ZModeler was upgraded to include obj export. Oh, and the wheels, yeah, only one gets exported, not sure why that is.

  • greymouser69greymouser69 Posts: 501
    edited December 1969

    YAY, a little bit of google-fu and I was able to find a free solution for importing dff files into blender! I searched for "gtatools for blender" which lead me to a site in japanese, but it looks like it was released/updated 08-12-2012 so very recent. Be aware, the imports can take a few seconds/min during which time windows might think blender has become "unresponsive" but just wait it out and poof there it is. You still have to go through and delete all the extra junk that comes in but that is pretty easy to do via the scene pane. This ONLY works with dff files but there are tons of them out there to download for free!

    As for there only being one wheel on conversion, from what I can see in blender, the whole model consists of "dummy" objects most of which contain both the real object and the collision object. The wheels all have dummy objects but only one of them has an actual wheel object in the few I have opened up so far.

    Now I just need to learn a bit more about blender so that I can duplicate & place all the wheels in their proper places prior to exporting it as an obj. I'm not sure if the "dummy" objects are anything to worry about since they don't seem to have any textures or anything...

  • equinoxx5equinoxx5 Posts: 126
    edited December 1969

    "Batgirl's Ride"
    In 1967, producers of the "Batman" TV series hoped to shore up ratings by introducing a new character for the third season: Batgirl, who'd debuted in the comics just a few months earlier ("The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl," Detective Comics #359, January 1967, written by Gardner Fox, art by Carmine Infantino). This Batgirl's cowl concealed the face of Barbara Gordon, daughter of Gotham City's police commissioner, recent college graduate and newly minted librarian at the Gotham Public Library (in the comics, she was head librarian, with a Ph.D from Gotham State; yes, she was actually Doctor Gordon).

    There had been an earlier Bat-Girl in the comics, one Betty Kane, niece of Kathy "Batwoman" Kane. Betty carried a torch for Robin, the Boy Wonder and made a handful of appearances between 1961 and 1964, before new Batman editor Julius Schwatrz banished her, along with her aunt, Ace the Bat-Hound and Bat-Mite for being "too silly." With the spelling of her name changed to "Bette," she reappeared in the 70s to join Teen Titans West, before retiring her Bat-Girl persona for good and establishing a new identity... Flamebird.

    But back to Barbara. Portrayed by the lovely Yvonne Craig, this new Batgirl was a mystery even to Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward), her true identity known only to millionaire Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Alan Napier) -- who, of course, was also the sole confidant to the identities of Batman and Robin! Although Alfred would lend her a covert hand when he was able, Barbara's resources were, of course, far more modest Bruce's... though her level of ingenuity was clearly right up there alongside his. Where the Dynamic Duo had the wherewithal to command transportation for seemingly any conceivable situation -- land (Batmobile, Batcycle), sea (Batboat) or air (Batcopter) -- the Dominoed Dare-doll relied solely on her custom Batgirl Cycle to get around.

    To bring the Batgirl Cycle to the screen, the producers turned once more to Dan Dempski and Richard "Korky" Korkes, aka Kustomotive, the shop that created Batman and Robin's Batcycle in the show's first season. Like the boys' bike, Batgirl's ride was built on a Yamaha platform; in this case, a 1968 YDS-5E, with an electric starting 250cc engine (the earlier Batcycle was based on a kick-starting 1966 YDS-3 Catalina, also a 250cc). While other vehicles created for the show, namely the George Barris-built Batmobile and the "macho" Batcycle by Kustomotive, had multiple copies made ("hero" and "stunt" vehicles, which later toured on exhibition), legend has it that there was only one Batgirl Cycle built, and when the series was cancelled after the third season, the bike was stripped of all its Bat-customizations and returned to Yamaha for a refund of $374.

    Yvonne Craig, incidentally, was an experienced rider before she landed the role, but at 5'3" and 109 lbs., 250cc's was a little more than she could comfortably handle much of the time. Also, the bike had no shocks; they'd been removed so the custom "bat-wings" would fit.

    This representation of Batgirl's ride, by DrunkenDragon, is available for free over at Heromorph, along with Batman's Batcycle (with go-kart/sidecar) and a nice model of the legendary George Barris Batmobile (based on the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car). The windshield and front fairing can be removed, and the front and rear wheel fenders made transparent, leaving a decent facsimile of the underlying YDS-5E... as long as you don't mind a bat-shaped rear-view mirror (and if you do, a few minutes in a modeler can fix that).

    BatgirlsRide_full.jpg
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  • edited December 1969

    still busy with the cars but a new arrival at the garage
    now i have to expand the garage to fit
    rendered in blender 2.49 but with a hint of the next car in line

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  • CherokeeCherokee Posts: 292
    edited December 1969

    Here's the comparison of the 1956 Chevy Nomad and the 1956 Pontiac Safari. I can't decide which I like the best.

    56_Pontiac_SafarAnd56_NomadiPP2012.jpg
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  • GLWoodardGLWoodard Posts: 3,335
    edited December 1969

    Well Cherokee, the Pontiac wouldn't look right hotrodded, however, the Nomad!

  • music2u4umusic2u4u Posts: 2,822
    edited December 1969

    Well, I encountered my first blubbed car. I was wanting to do the 1941 Chevy Convertible, but when I loaded it, man...it was whacked. The mesh was ripped to pieces...lol. It would have been such a nice car. So, I had to move on to something else. I chose one that I could apply your method, Cherokee, in case it all went south. So, I chose a 1949 Ford F150 pickup.

    First of all, when I tried to load the 1941 Chevy, it would not read the textures even though I converted them in TDXWorkshop to .tga and .bmp files. Then I noticed the names it was looking for were not the names of the textures, so I think whoever made the car, blew up the mesh, swapped out with bogus textures, then locked it to insure no one could convert it.

    The textures read fine in the Ford truck. I did export it as .obj files as you said, and it went well. Took it right into DS and parented, resized, tweeked textures, the went back and added shaders. Like you said, only one wheel, so I exported the wheel as a seperate .obj. That way I can change the wheels if I want, and animate them too. I did the doors, hood and tailgate seperate also. This one only took about an hour to do. Turned out ok, though the mesh is not as nice as the Pontiac. Still nice though.

    Don't know which I will do next. I got a real nice shotgun and a Fender Stratocaster guitar I can do too. I got some real nice choppers too. I think I might go with a 56 or 57 chevy next.

    Here are some renders of the Ford truck.

    :-)

    1949FordF150Daz4.jpg
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    1949FordF150Daz3.jpg
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    1949FordF150Daz2.jpg
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    1949FordF150Daz1.jpg
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  • michaeltoomichaeltoo Posts: 219
    edited December 1969

    Cherokee said:
    Here's the comparison of the 1956 Chevy Nomad and the 1956 Pontiac Safari. I can't decide which I like the best.
    Hi Cherokee, is this a photo or a render? BTW I can't decide either, although I'm a Chevy nut, I really like the Pontiac as well! :-)
  • michaeltoomichaeltoo Posts: 219
    edited November 2012

    equinoxx5 said:
    "Batgirl's Ride"

    That's fascinating, I appreciate you taking the time to share that. I really enjoyed that. Its amazing how you can keep learning something new about a tv program, that's almost 50 yrs old. :-) BTW very nicely rendered, love her bat bike!

    Post edited by michaeltoo on
  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited December 1969

    one i did of Elle Driver AKA The Black Mamba from the movie Kill Bill Vol II & a Harley Custom

    The_Black_Mamba_03.jpg
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  • GLWoodardGLWoodard Posts: 3,335
    edited December 1969

    Hey Must, I had the same thing happen on the 41 Chevy, the original creator is Dan Polatnik, that right there says you will never convert that car, I searched and found a plugin for importing .dff files into Blender, works great, when I get back home, I'll upload some renders I made of theModel A pickup I converted.

  • greymouser69greymouser69 Posts: 501
    edited December 1969

    Glad to hear you found it Betsy! I've been playing around with it and re-learning some blender basics heh.

    I'm currently converting a '67 "goat" (GTO) and the mesh looks great! I got it imported in to blender, duplicated the 3 missing tires and placed them appropriately then exported the whole bunch as an obj. Only problem is that when studio imports the obj it makes everything a single mesh instead of separate parts even though I exported them as separate objects & groups within the obj. Guess I'm going to have to go back and re-do the exports so that I can make the hood, trunk, doors, etc. movable separately when in studio.

    I'm seeing some strangeness with the materials where many parts have multiple materials assigned to them on dff import but I'm guessing that is related to how gta works and I just need to fiddle with it some more to get it all to turn out properly. Re-learning and using blender 2.64a has really been a lot of fun, I really like the interface now and it is super easy once you get some of the basics down.

    Wow, semi-hijack of the thread, maybe we should make a separate gta conversion thread for all this somewhere?

  • GLWoodardGLWoodard Posts: 3,335
    edited December 1969

    Hey Graymouse, what your doing wrong is exporting the whole thing at once, what you do if you want to have opening doors, hood trunk and steering the front wheels is you have to export the parts separately, that means you must delete all other parts from your viewport, and then export the wanted part, in Blender, you can't just undo the deletes after exporting, you might as well finish deleting the part you exported and start over again, not diffacult really, but it can be time consuming.

    Here are the pix I promised earlier of the Model A pickup, its really a beautiful mesh, nice to work with, and for a game car, it sure is quite detailed!

    Model_A_4.jpg
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    Model_A_3.jpg
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    Model_A_2.jpg
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    Model_A_1.jpg
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    Model_A_.jpg
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  • music2u4umusic2u4u Posts: 2,822
    edited November 2012

    Turned out very nice Betsy. Did it export the textures, it looks like those dash guages are missing.

    Well, this is what I've been working on most of today...my absolute dream car...the 1956 Chevy Bel Air. This was the first car I owned, but it didn't look as good as this one. This mesh ROCKS! Look at how the door seams are perfect, and the fender, hood and trunk seams too. The textures are awesome. I arranged the colors here, and I used Dazfire's Real paint shaders. The chrome has NO SHADERS! This is the way it came....amazing huh? The engine uses real photo textures even and the key is in the ignition ready to drive away into the sunset. The mesh is by Robin'7t4...remember that name and go get some of his work.

    This is now one of my favorite car models. I can't thank you enough Cherokee for turning me on to this concept of converting.

    here she is!!!!!!!

    :-)

    1956ChevyBelAirDaz5.jpg
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    1956ChevyBelAirDaz4.jpg
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    1956ChevyBelAirDaz3.jpg
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    1956ChevyBelAirDaz2.jpg
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    1956ChevyBelAirDaz1.jpg
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    Post edited by music2u4u on
  • music2u4umusic2u4u Posts: 2,822
    edited December 1969

    Ivy said:
    one i did of Elle Driver AKA The Black Mamba from the movie Kill Bill Vol II & a Harley Custom

    Welcome to our little garage Ivy. She looks real good, like a biker chick should!

    :-)

  • GLWoodardGLWoodard Posts: 3,335
    edited December 1969

    No it didn't, I'm using shaders, that 56 looks great, I also downloaded that one, I believe we are going to have some fun with these cars, finally, Finally! we have a very nice mesh for a 55 Chevy, finally! And a 56!

    sue_s_55.jpg
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  • greymouser69greymouser69 Posts: 501
    edited December 1969

    Whee, here's the 67 "goat" I've been working on today. All assembled now I just need to learn some basic rigging in studio 4.5 to set the hood, trunk, doors & wheels properly. Something strange happened to the front seats at render time making them look huge, I'm not sure but it might be the settings for the glass on the windshield acting like a magnifying glass or something... But overall a very nice clean mesh with all the parts fitting quite nicely such as hood, trunk, doors, etc. This should work quite well once I learn the proper rigging for them.

    I used the old super shine top coat shader settings for the body and some chrome & glass ones I've had around forever in the appropriate places. Click for full size of course, rendered at 720p res 16x9.

    67GTO_Test.png
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  • CherokeeCherokee Posts: 292
    edited November 2012

    How about a 1968 Barracuda. Rendered in Poser Pro 2012.

    Hey everyone, your all doing a great job with these conversion. Glad too see people doing these now instead of just me. Sure hope your having as much fun doing them as I am. I think I'll go bad and do the Hudson Hornet in stork version

    1968_Barracuda.jpg
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    Post edited by Cherokee on
  • GLWoodardGLWoodard Posts: 3,335
    edited December 1969

    Cherokee said:
    How about a 1968 Barracuda. Rendered in Poser Pro 2012.

    Hey everyone, your all doing a great job with these conversion. Glad too see people doing these now instead of just me. Sure hope your having as much fun doing them as I am. I think I'll go bad and do the Hudson Hornet in stork version

    Oh believe me, I know I am, and I'm sure that everyone else is too, very glad to be doing these conversions.

  • GLWoodardGLWoodard Posts: 3,335
    edited December 1969

    Whee, here's the 67 "goat" I've been working on today. All assembled now I just need to learn some basic rigging in studio 4.5 to set the hood, trunk, doors & wheels properly. Something strange happened to the front seats at render time making them look huge, I'm not sure but it might be the settings for the glass on the windshield acting like a magnifying glass or something... But overall a very nice clean mesh with all the parts fitting quite nicely such as hood, trunk, doors, etc. This should work quite well once I learn the proper rigging for them.

    I used the old super shine top coat shader settings for the body and some chrome & glass ones I've had around forever in the appropriate places. Click for full size of course, rendered at 720p res 16x9.


    Looks pretty good, however, you needed to delete the DAM files, you can make those show up in Blender by pressing alt.+H.

  • greymouser69greymouser69 Posts: 501
    edited December 1969

    betsy662 said:

    Looks pretty good, however, you needed to delete the DAM files, you can make those show up in Blender by pressing alt.+H.

    Hmm, ok I'm not sure I understand completely. Do I do this right after importing the dff? And where do I see them in blender? I thought I had done a decent enough job removing all the excess junk but I'm sure there could have been things I missed. Blender is still a learning/re-learning process for me since it has been a couple years since I messed with anything like this.

  • GLWoodardGLWoodard Posts: 3,335
    edited December 1969

    Once you have the car in Blender, yes, you press the alt+H at the same time, that will open the dam files.

  • music2u4umusic2u4u Posts: 2,822
    edited December 1969

    betsy662 said:
    No it didn't, I'm using shaders, that 56 looks great, I also downloaded that one, I believe we are going to have some fun with these cars, finally, Finally! we have a very nice mesh for a 55 Chevy, finally! And a 56!


    Yup...we sure are. Here is another I did earlier. A 1969 Camaro Z28. I have some original Chevy Ralley wheels that I am going to swap these out with to get that stock Chevy look. Also gonna hot rod that 56 up with some nice wheels.

    :-)

    1969CamaroZ28Daz3.jpg
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    1969CamaroZ28Daz2.jpg
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    1969CamaroZ28Daz1.jpg
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  • music2u4umusic2u4u Posts: 2,822
    edited December 1969

    Whee, here's the 67 "goat" I've been working on today. All assembled now I just need to learn some basic rigging in studio 4.5 to set the hood, trunk, doors & wheels properly. Something strange happened to the front seats at render time making them look huge, I'm not sure but it might be the settings for the glass on the windshield acting like a magnifying glass or something... But overall a very nice clean mesh with all the parts fitting quite nicely such as hood, trunk, doors, etc. This should work quite well once I learn the proper rigging for them.

    I used the old super shine top coat shader settings for the body and some chrome & glass ones I've had around forever in the appropriate places. Click for full size of course, rendered at 720p res 16x9.

    It almost looks like the seats are just not all the way down to the floor, like floating. Then it could be that the windshield has a reflection texture that is actually a picture of the interior, that may be sized up too big, shrink it down or better yet delete it. You don't need it anyway.

    All these cars have hidden damage files for when they wreck in GTA. They are listed as "dam" files and you can right click and delete them in ZModeler once you open the heiarchy tree to the right of the viewport. Don't know about Blender, but I am sure they are listed. Delete them, you don't need them unless you are going to render a wrecked car...lol.

    :-)

  • music2u4umusic2u4u Posts: 2,822
    edited November 2012

    Cherokee said:
    How about a 1968 Barracuda. Rendered in Poser Pro 2012.

    Hey everyone, your all doing a great job with these conversion. Glad too see people doing these now instead of just me. Sure hope your having as much fun doing them as I am. I think I'll go bad and do the Hudson Hornet in stork version

    SWEEEEEEEET! Love the green!

    1968_Barracuda.jpg
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    Post edited by music2u4u on
  • GLWoodardGLWoodard Posts: 3,335
    edited December 1969

    music2u4u said:
    Whee, here's the 67 "goat" I've been working on today. All assembled now I just need to learn some basic rigging in studio 4.5 to set the hood, trunk, doors & wheels properly. Something strange happened to the front seats at render time making them look huge, I'm not sure but it might be the settings for the glass on the windshield acting like a magnifying glass or something... But overall a very nice clean mesh with all the parts fitting quite nicely such as hood, trunk, doors, etc. This should work quite well once I learn the proper rigging for them.

    I used the old super shine top coat shader settings for the body and some chrome & glass ones I've had around forever in the appropriate places. Click for full size of course, rendered at 720p res 16x9.

    It almost looks like the seats are just not all the way down to the floor, like floating. Then it could be that the windshield has a reflection texture that is actually a picture of the interior, that may be sized up too big, shrink it down or better yet delete it. You don't need it anyway.

    All these cars have hidden damage files for when they wreck in GTA. They are listed as "dam" files and you can right click and delete them in ZModeler once you open the heiarchy tree to the right of the viewport. Don't know about Blender, but I am sure they are listed. Delete them, you don't need them unless you are going to render a wrecked car...lol.

    :-)

    Actually, they are extra seats, probably DAM files, they need to be deleted, they will be left in place if you export the obj out of Blender without removing them, they will show up in DS, I found that out with the Model A, it had a completely wrecked truck underneath the other perfect truck, so what I did was pulled it back into Blender, the .dff file that is, then I read the instructions on how to use the addon a little closer, with the whole car highlighted in Blender, you hit the alt+H keys, and it will show the DAM files, allowing you to remove them, ie. delete them.

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  • GLWoodardGLWoodard Posts: 3,335
    edited December 1969

    Heres a few that I converted tonight, I got caught up in some excitement, for some reason I couldn't get the 56 Nomad to work, might be a problem on my end, or I ended up with a corrupt download, I did get the 56 Bel-Air downloaded, but didn't get it shaded yet, so have no renders of it yet, but the 63 Impala 4 door, and yes, it does have the SS package, as in 1962 and 63, you could order the SS package on any of the full size Chevrolet's.

    Then there is the 59 Biscayne, one of my favorite configurations of the 59 Chevy, and of course, the 56 Safari wagon.

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    56_Safari.jpg
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    some_cool_cars.jpg
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  • Robert FreiseRobert Freise Posts: 4,455
    edited December 1969

    OK gonna get to play I hope
    Finally got the GTA Tools for Blender installed had to reinstall an older version of Blender to get them to work as the newest version won't recognize them

  • greymouser69greymouser69 Posts: 501
    edited December 1969

    OK gonna get to play I hope
    Finally got the GTA Tools for Blender installed had to reinstall an older version of Blender to get them to work as the newest version won't recognize them

    Then you found the wrong one Robert. The first one I found wouldn't run in newer blender versions then I found the one on the Japanese site that was released in August which works perfectly in 2.64a. Here is the link for the ones I'm using in 2.64a. (Link uses google translate to translate the page from Japanese to English)

This discussion has been closed.