screwdriver

Hi there,

I started modeling my way through the beautyful 2002 Mercedes SL. This is my first car-model, but I'm not new to 3d modelling at all. I'm using gmax for the modeling so any help getting it over to racer's .dof format would be apriciated [<-hope this is written correctly ]. I will then also need help with the ini-file.
While I'm writing this I've finished the hood and the fender as well as the front bumper.

Note: I decided to split the models into it's production parts to have easier modeling.
When finished them I will join them into one body then split it apart again to make tuning easier (I heard the light-model-trick will allow almost anything to be added outside the body model).

Also if you know good pics of the SL post them here I need any, especially photos of the doors at all angels. (the siluette of the door is covered by the wheels in the blueprints I found and used)

Greetz, screwdriver

PS: snapshots are about to come as soon as I'll find a way to host them since attachments are disabled .

[EDIT]
The most current preview release will be attached here from now on!.

Preview pics are avalible in the last post of mine in this thread.
Also please read what I've said about the current release in my last post.
Another ?must-do? is that you have to read the readme file included. This file tells you everything you need to know about this release.
[/EDIT]

Attached Files

Mercedes_SL.zip (5.39 MB, 276 views)

Clairvoyant

I have 3.64 MB on my acount if you want?

__________________
Do you know, what has more holes than swiss chees?
- Many things, but POLISH ROADS have them most.

Pink Pornostar

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...9&category=6338

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...9&category=6338

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...3&category=6338

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...6&category=6338

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...4&category=6338

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...2&category=6338

etc.

Hope you find them useful.

screwdriver

Clairvoyant: Yes, of course. Do you want me to email 'em or how do you like them?

Pink Pornostar: Oh - the us version. Are ther anymore differneces than the space for the licence-plates and the dials in mph?

Clairvoyant

don't mail'em I'll send you login and password on PM

__________________
Do you know, what has more holes than swiss chees?
- Many things, but POLISH ROADS have them most.

screwdriver

Ok, here comes the status after two days of work.

click here

Big thanx to Clairvoyant for the hosting.

What you can see there is that I've done the A-pillar and the door. These are just outlines since I made up the polys using bezier lines. The fender is coming out very good as well as the lines on the hood, but those could be better and will be refined. Talking about the bumper and the door they give me the creeps. Those lines just don't come out as they should, but I think I can fix that.

EDIT: Them things in the fender an hood are no good looking refections, they are just jpeg compression artifacts (I wish those were )

The other thing is that I am away over the weekend, I don't know if I can do further work coz my brother is moving and needs my help. Think I'll better take my laptop-computer with me

cu,

screwdriver

Clairvoyant

you can store some more pics, I left you 4 MB free space.

__________________
Do you know, what has more holes than swiss chees?
- Many things, but POLISH ROADS have them most.

Mafiaboy69

Wow yea nice car

when it's done can i use the ini also on my Mercedes SL 500 ?

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
------PLEASE MR MAFIA DONT TAKE MY CAR TAKE MY WIFE---------------------
Life sucks without the 69'th Boy of the Mafia and thats me Mafiaboy69
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

mirkules

Hi!

Good work, screwdriver. Keep it up!

@Mafiaboy69:
Are You still calling this beutiful Mercedes SL 500 (made by Klaus Heyne for NFS HS) "my Mercedes" ??? Unbelivable.

mirkules

__________________
My website: www.mirkules.webpark.pl , Polish Racer Forum:www.forumracer.prv.pl

screwdriver

K, I'm back.

I'm sorry but I couldn't do anything on the model, because stupid me forgot to install gmax on my laptop in all the hurry. But there are some good news after all. Thanks to my brother and his friend now I will have a lot of tecnical data on the SL which should make the inis quite makable.

And since Mafiaboy69 asked for it: As I release any drivable stuff for racer you will be allowed to use the parts of it for your projects as long as you add a noticable credit in your package and as long as I may also have my fun with your modifications. Note: I can't have my eyes everywhere, but I'll try.

For easier tuning and modifications I will split the car up as much as possible (extra hood, extra fenders) and deliver all the source-files such as models and textures in my packages.

That's it for now, have a nice rest of the weekend,

screwdriver.

screwdriver

It's time for an update:

Although this day begun very bad and I've already been on the point to drop the project there are good new and two more snapshots for you:

this one shows my work yesterday:
http://cs.fhm.edu/~ifw02147/snapshot-04-01-04.jpg
As you can see all the outlines are done.

and this is what work is at today (better fasten your seatbelts this may knock you off your chair!):
http://cs.fhm.edu/~ifw02147/snapshot-05-01-04.jpg
You can see how I refined my spline network and made a way better surface.

I would say the front is quite done except some quirks on the bumper. Currnetly I'm working on the door's surface to make it look the same good way as the front does.

that's it for today, cu

screwdriver

Clairvoyant

well, now i'm begining to see some thing

__________________
Do you know, what has more holes than swiss chees?
- Many things, but POLISH ROADS have them most.

screwdriver

reh!

Now you are on. I've finished the major body model yesterday evening and did some further snapshots:

http://cs.fhm.edu/~ifw02147/snapshot2-05-01-04.jpg
http://cs.fhm.edu/~ifw02147/snapshot3-05-01-04.jpg
http://cs.fhm.edu/~ifw02147/snapshot4-05-01-04.jpg

If you can see any quirks, anything wrong, or some spots that look strange, like the line between the two parts please feel free to report them.

Note: Ther are a few parts missing like the mirros and the air-intake on the side. I will do them today.

cu,

screwdriver

PS. Finally I configured the webspace provided by my university and moved my snapshots there. All past links should work, too.
Thanx to Clairvoyant for the temporary hosting.

screwdriver

Allright I'm back again!

I hope you don't find it annoying that I keep informing about my progress or are you just too impressed to write replies or what? I just don't like talking to myself.

Anyways I've finished the mayor part of the bodywork and started experimenting with tires and rims. Look there:
http://cs.fhm.edu/~ifw02147/snapshot-07-01-04.jpg

Then I noticed some strange things just behind the wheel case:

EDIT: moved this problem here:

http://forum.racesimcentral.com/showthread.php?t=129781

cu and thanx

screwdriver

screwdriver

Oh sweet seems like I can attach!

Ha got to take the chance and post an update. Well I had to do some urgent things in the past week so I couldn't do much on my car. I just startet the interior. The seat is finished so far. Maybe if I can find some more time I will refine it because it doesn't quite match with the original one.

Attached Thumbnails

     

MeSs

how many polys is the dasH?
MeSs

__________________

screwdriver

Hehe you really wanna know that?
Well here you go: overall polys used in working version (all mirrored, etc) 238396

screwdriver

Ok, now I'm really stuck!

My computer is crashed and I have only my notebook to work with.
Also I have a few important tests comming up in the next weeks so I'll rather learn than try to fix my computer and do some modelling.
I'm not going to do something in the next few weeks, so don't be dissappointed.

In the mean time you could help me fix some porblems I still have.
One is my "baloon" problem, wich is mentioned above and has it's own thread in this forum.
But the more importatnt one now is the fact that I'm using gmax to create this model, so I'll need to find a proper way to get it over into racer.
I already read the thread about using tempest to get it over into quake's md3 format and then use a file-converter that can do md3 to dof converting.
And exactly this is my problem. The exporting into md3 works just fine, but I still haven't found a free md3 to dof or ase or 3ds converter. Or something else that can do the trick of converting my gmax car to a format which is supported by racer or Zmodeller somehow.

If you know anyting useful please tell me.

__________________
GreetZ,

screwdriver
current wip:

* Mercedes SL (2002) [on it]
* BMW 6 series [modelling]


If you find a speling mistake you may keep it.

f50

modeler.exe that comes with racer claims to have M3D importing ability. if that really does work (which i bet so, since its an old format), then you can save to DOF from that.

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
Scuderia f50

Mattyj

It looks very cool. But the polycount? Whoa.... You're joking, right?

Hmmm, you work fast... What is your next idea for a car?

screwdriver

Ok got a minute.

f50: Thankx for opening my eyes, of course it has.

But it didn't yet make it's way into racer though. The md3 export made me notice some porblems my normals. Somehow my mirrors seem to go inside. I'll need to fix that. Also I have problems with the textures, dimmensions and the allignment (somehow all the axis are twisted now). I also read that the md3 exporter I use currently causes some problems with mirrored meshes, where it produces some wrong normals on the mirrored part. If I'll try another those problems shoudl have been gone. Otherwise there is no other choice than to correct the dof file manually with Zmod. I didn't try mapping a texture on it yet - I think this will become a problem, too.

Actually I tried getting it into racer, but it failed for some reason. I used the newly released Nissan 300zx as base, where I simply replaced the body.dof file. But nothing showed up. Instead when trying a spin it just takes off from the gound like a helicopter without anything beeing seen from the body. Just the wheels and bake lights are drawn. Nothing else. Maybe I forgot something but I don't have the time to research the reason for this right now.

You see there's a lot of work to do with the model itself and the export.

Mattyj: have a look at my signature >>--v

I think I'll do the new BMW 6 Series next. But I'm not shure at all wich modeller to use. I played with the thought about switching over to Blender which has much better capabilities but is way more complex than gmax.
I also didn't manage dof export from blender yet. If it works I'll decide what to do. Also I want to know how hard it will actually be to turn the Benz over to racer. If it is easy enough I might even do the BMW in gmax again.

I also thought about ini making. I kindo miss some graphic tools therefore. So I am currently thinking about writing a little java programme wich will do that. When I am ready to do so I'll start an own thread in the ini forum.

__________________
GreetZ,

screwdriver
current wip:

* Mercedes SL (2002) [on it]
* BMW 6 series [modelling]


If you find a speling mistake you may keep it.

Mattyj

Nice choice.

screwdriver

Man I hate it, that exam bull**** keep sucking all out of me.
I just needed away from all that learning stuff, so I worked out a little bit on the interior. This is how far I got. I also convinced a friend of mine about him doing the dials, so they will also come soon. (the ones attached are done by me kind of in-a-rush so they are kind of creepy)

PS: I also managed to get it over into racer. Now if you you want I could release what I've got so far. (actually three dof files, one for the body and the two tires and rims). But especially the body contains a lot of glitches which need to be fixed before the you can really enjoy the model.

Attached Thumbnails

     

__________________
GreetZ,

screwdriver
current wip:

* Mercedes SL (2002) [on it]
* BMW 6 series [modelling]


If you find a speling mistake you may keep it.

screwdriver

I've done a second pass on the body, which means I took on most of the glitches and made it whole lot smooter overall.
I also brought it into racer. s427 lets me use his Nissan 300ZX as base for the car because I don't have any sounds and inis yet. Thanx therefore.

4 screenshots attached, a old one and 3 new ones. I also brought the dial that I've done into racer.

I will do a preview release tomarrow, then I'll pack everything, including the moddel up and give it to you. I hope to recieve some critiques then in order to improve the model a little bit more. Meanwhile I'll do the missing parts.

Attached Thumbnails

       

__________________
GreetZ,

screwdriver
current wip:

* Mercedes SL (2002) [on it]
* BMW 6 series [modelling]


If you find a speling mistake you may keep it.