@ZModeler
Been using some form of ZModeler, since 2009. In ZMod3, I import my OBJ, select by material the paint mesh, choose to edit existing UV, then in UV mapper the mesh is ruined. I can import that same OBJ into ZMod2 or Blender or any other editor the the UV mapping is perfect.
Animations in pCars....there are suspensions, fully animated wipers (not just shaking wipers), then there are shaking mirrors, shaking shifting stalks, bouncing bonnet, etc.
Things such as moving wings and flaps are handled by setting proper axis pivot point on the model, then editing a binary file...nothing that you would need to be concerned with.
Some time ago, I posted on this thread a decode of much of the BAS file...(read post #710)...
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/project-cars-modding-questions-wip.105969/page-36#post-2268985
Here is an old BAS in XML format just as a reference...
http://www.mediafire.com/file/4bvxi9z9nh95ryj/alfa_romeo_gta_1600_cockpit.bas
Currently, we make a car. Then we look for an animated wiper model from an original car in Pcars that may work for our new car. We then copy all of the animation files from the donor source car into our project. What I do from there is open the donor BAS to see what other objects I could animate (such as bonnet, mirrors). If the new car came from Shift 2 Unleashed, I can easily acquire the "transform" data from the old BAS file, convert it to code and enter into the donor BAS.
If I'm making animation from scratch by creating skeleton, bone, weight painting vertices, I would then use a worksheet that converts the offset/orientation data into the "Transform" string. Here is that worksheet (made by Chevyopala)...
http://www.mediafire.com/file/p1aw9au23f09a0u/Quat_to_Matrix.xlsm
configanim.bin file is basically establishing bump amplitudes, frequency/waves and other variables in order to shake/bounce/rattle things. In my opinion, there are plenty of examples from existing cars that we can just copy to use for a new car.
vehicleanimnodenames.bin - just reading through the file. Seems to be not much more than a list of the bone names in use for the animated suspension. There are pointers in the file to parse the string data (bone names).
vehicleanims.bab - I haven't reviewed this file.
I also wanted to mention that some mebs require 4 UV layers...
For instance a windscreen meb...
UV1 (section 1,3,0 in code of meb) - mapped to either a banner, logos and glass color(s)
UV2 (section 1,3,1 in code of meb) - mapped to cockpit windscreen reflection
UV3 (section 1,3,2 in code of meb) - mapped to paint template
UV4 (section 1,3,4 in code of meb) - mapped to wiper mask/trails
So, the ability for ZMod3 to both read all UV layers on import and to export all UV layers without discarding anything would be a great feature to have.