[Beta released!] Japanese-ish sports car thingy (need naming suggestions)

[kiwibear]

and is based on a slew of different japanese cars, mostly Nissans.

christ people

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[Robo Dude]

I think it's a mix of different japanese cars, it doesn't have to be based in one single car

I can kinda see the 240SX, like I said, in the back, and a Skyline R33 in the Front.

[Barnabas]

Looks nice so far; I'm wondering how does it scale to the actual Blockhead?

[warble]

front looks like this

[Pentium]

Thanks for the input, guys!
Yeah, as I said, it's a mixture of different cars. It was supposed to be a blend of a Nissan Silvia and a 240SX, hence the roofline and the rear end. The front was accidental; I tried to make it look like an S13 but when I made the bumper it turned in to a Skyline.

Looks nice so far; I'm wondering how does it scale to the actual Blockhead?

I don't really know yet; I've tried importing the model into blender, but it's hard to visualise the proportions without seeing the model in-game, especially since the player model I used didn't bones.

Speaking of which, I'm actually trying to get the model into Blockland right now. Since exporting through Blender 2.49 is quite cumbersome I'm trying to use Torque3D's Collada importer, but sadly the engines use different model formats (Blockland uses version 24, T3D version 26). I've asked the GG community about this issue; if they can't solve it then I guess I'll have to do it the old way

[Pentium]

An update: I managed to load the model into BL by exporting it with the COLLADA to DTS exporter in the T3D 1.2 demo. I can only load it through the mission editor, though, since trying to spawn it as a vehicle makes the game crash with no error messages. It also looks quite odd; the collision box is visible and the only texture that gets applied is the blank texture, even though all the textures are included in the .zip:

I think the issue is that my model isn't properly set up for TGE. This is what the model hierarchy looks like right now:

I followed DarkStars's vehicle tutorial for this, although I'm not sure if it's correct or at least not complete. When I looked around for tutorials on the 'net, I came across this interesting tidbit: http://web.archive.org/web/20100326072114/http://tork.beffy.de/tutorials/vehicles/wheeled.htm
As you can see, the hierarchy is a little different from the one used in DarkStars's tutorial, and it contains a lot of things that his simply are missing. If anyone could help me with this, it'd be appreciated.

[Barnabas]

Which exporter are you using? If you are using the latest available version then DarkStar's tutorial is not relevant.

[Pentium]

I used the dae2dts util in the demo version of Torque3D Tools 1.2 (I sure damn hope it's compatible with TGE 1.2, because it took me several days trying to compile the sources in T3D 3.5, and another three hours to find the compiled excecuteable). I've uploaded it here if you want to take a look yourself: http://www.mediafire.com/download/09c1dkjso4wipik/dae2dts.zip

[HALO3cheif]

my only complaint is the front looks 10 inches too long, perhaps you could shorten it?

I agree, it does look too long in the front, but it looks pretty good.

[heedicalking]

your using a t3d exporter. that's two torque generations ahead of us, i doubt it's going to work. use the blender DTS exporter.

[Dionysusan]

chop the top a bit and it would look like the sultan from GTA SA :)

[Pentium]

your using a t3d exporter. that's two torque generations ahead of us, i doubt it's going to work. use the blender DTS exporter.

It's probably intended as a T3D exporter, but it also has a compatibility mode which outputs DTS files in the version that Blockland uses (dae2dts --compat <filename>.dae in a command prompt to use). There is a chance it still doesn't work, but I'd say it's still worth a shot considering how much it'd simplify life for modellers.
EDIT: As I said, I think my problem is simply that my model isn't properly configured for Torque. Specifically, this is what I need to know:

• How should I parent the model meshes?
• Should I use empties or bones for mount points?
• What do I call the collision box(es)?
• Do I need to add a bounding box?

[miniiron45]

Is this gonna be for download soon cause it looks ready.

[Pentium]

It pretty much is, just need to export it. As it is now, I'm going to give up on the COLLADA to DTS exporter and just do it through Blender. If anyone somehow manages to make the exporter work, please let me know about it.

[Barnabas]

If you are going to export your model from Blender, you have to use the old version. Demian posted a portable Blender with the exporter and the required Python stuff included.

Alex Dude has made a comprehensive guide about making cars in Blender.