Creating a vehicle

[drholmes1003]

Dear everyone,

Thank you for taking time to read this!

I am absolutely new to this game and I am not an experienced modeller but I have an aspiration and enthusiasm may be to become one. The task I have to perform is to get from a solid CAD (Catia v5) model of a car to a somehow decent virtual full-physics model for Racer PRO version. Any opinion will be much appreciated! Please feel free to suggest any modelling package and modelling routes. A list of files I will have to work with would be of an immense help!

And after graphics are done what is required to programm physics in? Why the way each car.ini is programmed is different?

I realize the insane amount of documentation available at racer.nl but the amount of information is just too big to handle and I get lost all the time. Links for relevant topics will be much appreciated as well!

Kind regards,
Anton

 

[Alex Forbin]

Hi Anton,

As far as modeling goes I prefer Lightwave by Newtek or 3DS MAX by autodesk simply because I've used them for so long, since you are with a school you can get very good or even free deals on the software.
You will find MANY tutorials on car modeling on the net simply by googling "car" "tutorial" "modeling".

The best way to start is to take the default car.ini and read through it. In it you will find a lot of comments describing the different parameters relating to the cars physics. You can find it in the "racer/data/cars/default" folder. Once you have done that you can compare it to other car.ini files to see how they differ.

In a nutshell, the basic files you need are listed below...
1. ".dof" files are the visual shape or model of the car.
2. ".shd" are shader files. these tell racer what parts of the car are chrome/textured/dull/clear...
3. ".crv" These are curve files, usually used to describe the cars torque curve, they can also be used for damper/spring rates.
4. "car.ini" This is where the cars physics are described.
5. "view.ini" This indicates where the 3d gauge needles are located in the car. It also places the 2D gauges on the screen.

There is more but this will get you most of the way.

Alex Forbin

 

[boomer541]

Here is a link to the downloads thread where there are a lot of tutorials about racer cars/tracks which may be helpful.

http://www.racedepartment.com/dlcat-racer-miscellaneous-74/

 

[drholmes1003]

Thanks to those few who replied!

The initial problem I faced is that 3DS Max can't save the model in .dof file format. Or can it? What is the way to get the model from 3DS Max supported formats, like .OBJ, .IGS, etc., to .dof?

Many thanks,
Anton

 

[drholmes1003]

So silly of me!

I've just found a 3DS Max .dof exporter plugin on this forum. Will be back to you if I have more questions or just to share the progress!

Thanks,
Anton