ZModeler forum

Part 2

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Oleg wrote:watch the video please, it was all explained and shown.

In part 1 of your video at 9:46, how do you select those parts? Separately!

Select\Single with right-click (or Shift+S if you have default hotkeys configured).

NewEra wrote:Hey, I Did It?
Any Ideas Oleg? =)





Did Colls For The 4 Wheels

how did you fix it? my game also crash

Use [wheel_lf]

I need help as well: I've converted my first car but it crashes the game when I am trying to spawn it. Can somebody help me? I've spent 6 hours already and I don't know what I did wrong. Can I send the file to somebody to let him correct it?

it is a bad idea to start modding with "convert first car". You should start from modding original game models first, as modding is very sensitive to setup of hierarchy, collisions and materials. starting from original models will lead to less errors.

Even if your model is absolutely 100% correct with perfect setup and good collisions, the game can still crash due to a detalization limits exceeding.

Oleg wrote:it is a bad idea to start modding with "convert first car". You should start from modding original game models first, as modding is very sensitive to setup of hierarchy, collisions and materials. starting from original models will lead to less errors.

Even if your model is absolutely 100% correct with perfect setup and good collisions, the game can still crash due to a detalization limits exceeding.

Don't know the right expression for it but yes it is like that. The problem was: my zmodeler2 didn't exported any exhaust nor seats. Afterwards I've found a friend, who's helping me. He "converted" that car successfully and now I gonna try to make the steering wheel rotateable. I already detached the whole steering wheel. What do I have to do now?

To make everything from the first right, I gonna start a new car. But I don't get all these wheel things like cols and so. The strange thing is (or is it normal) that that exported car already has an hierarchy in Zmodeler3.

EDIT: For the textures which look really bad (interior), how can I make them look better?

I just finished but having problems with exporting. It does not export giving me an error:

Can not locate scene node named xyz.

Why does this appear?

in order to export to a file name my_model_hi.yft or my_model.yft, your scene should start from an object named my_model_hi.

Oleg wrote:in order to export to a file name my_model_hi.yft or my_model.yft, your scene should start from an object named my_model_hi.

I'm having a mess with the material browser. The car looks weired. How can I undo them. Ok I did as you said. It just now gives me an error message with "Can not obtain shader material 'gta_default'".

What's wrong now? Also, which material do I have to choose for "gta_default" and "Default material"? Vehicle_mesh?

EDIT: Another Question: I realized that my vehicle already has interiorlight section, so if the engine is turned on (tested the vehicle and exported it as Oleg told successfully) the dashboard gets lighted. How can I change the colour of the light? I've seen something with "vertex" on Zmodeler. Where can I change it?

Two more things which I definately have to learn is:

- making the steeringwheel rotateable (have problems with the "attach" section) = I select attach after I've deattached the steering wheel with separate tool, but nothing happens. So I simply click on my steeringwheel (turns yellow) and the other parts (which is under it in the hierarchy) but nothing happens. I still see them in different hierarchies and the steering wheel is missing it's components
- hands on the steeringwheel (how to?)
- working dashboard (digital and analog)
- interior lights
- material browser (I don't know what belongs to whom eg. default mesh = vehicle_basic or vehicle_mesh?)

That's all I need to learn and then I can release my first car

I've suggested already to start learn modding by taking original gta5 models first. conversion of a different model to gta5 take days when you already know all the details of this process. It is barely possible to learn modding the way you've chosen.

1. all materials should be properly converted. preferable, with conversion script button;
2. if i'm not mistaken, per-vertex color is no longer used for emissive lighting, only texture can give lit color on a model.
3. steering wheel have to be a separate object (modify\detach) with correct axes setup on it, so the spinning axis is perfectly aligned. the correct setup can be taken from original vehicle; the object have to be named properly, so the game "knows" what object to rotate. additionally (not sure on this) the vehicle script/meta should specify that the model actually has a steering wheel part. default vehicles usually have this pre-configured, so correct object name will automatically enable in-game steering wheel rotation;
4. hands on steering wheel - probably trial and error by moving the wheel and testing; mind the in-game steering wheel is very small, so the steering animation for hands require you to use a smaller steering wheel than real vehicles have.
5. no ideas on interior lights; probably just a properly named dummy node need to be available
6. vehicle_mesh is the most commonly used. it can range from plastic to chrome by means of different textures; supports color painting in game and bullet holes effects;

Oleg wrote:I've suggested already to start learn modding by taking original gta5 models first. conversion of a different model to gta5 take days when you already know all the details of this process. It is barely possible to learn modding the way you've chosen.

1. all materials should be properly converted. preferable, with conversion script button;
2. if i'm not mistaken, per-vertex color is no longer used for emissive lighting, only texture can give lit color on a model.
3. steering wheel have to be a separate object (modify\detach) with correct axes setup on it, so the spinning axis is perfectly aligned. the correct setup can be taken from original vehicle; the object have to be named properly, so the game "knows" what object to rotate. additionally (not sure on this) the vehicle script/meta should specify that the model actually has a steering wheel part. default vehicles usually have this pre-configured, so correct object name will automatically enable in-game steering wheel rotation;
4. hands on steering wheel - probably trial and error by moving the wheel and testing; mind the in-game steering wheel is very small, so the steering animation for hands require you to use a smaller steering wheel than real vehicles have.
5. no ideas on interior lights; probably just a properly named dummy node need to be available
6. vehicle_mesh is the most commonly used. it can range from plastic to chrome by means of different textures; supports color painting in game and bullet holes effects;

I've converted my first car successfully with working doors, boonet, boot, and collisions. Things I have to do is - I can't paint the vehicle (guess a paint_2 error) the license plate must be shown and a working steering wheel. Then I can release it as a beta

Your point 3: If I understand it right, I have to turn the polygons on, click on the part where the steering wheel is and seperate it with left click then dettach it. So how do I manage to attach it? After I've detached them, two or three more sections on my hierarchy appear. When I select the first new hierarchy and click on attach then press on the wheel it turns yellow. So what do I have to do after that? The steering wheel of my Kadett seperates into 3 parts. The other car which is about to ready for release doesn't have this problem

I found out, that "z_pribory_night" is the interior and dashboard light. How can I change the colour which is gonna light into the car? I've downloaded a Mercedes with orange interior/dashboard lights and a BMW E34 with red interior lights.

I hope I explained this better now.

post a screenshot of your scene, and a screen of hierarchy. detach tool usually creates a new object out of selected polygons, so it is ok to get new object in hierarchy. rename it and put it into proper place in hierarchy (probably, into "chassis" branch).

axes are X, Y and Z color lines that are drawn when you hover any object. on wheels these are in center of wheels, on doors they are at hinge point. on steering wheel, these should be at the center of the wheel.. and they should be rotated, so X goes left,Y goes to the wheel's upper circle point and Z points out of the wheel to the driver's head; I could be wrong on this, take a look on original models.

Oleg wrote:post a screenshot of your scene, and a screen of hierarchy. detach tool usually creates a new object out of selected polygons, so it is ok to get new object in hierarchy. rename it and put it into proper place in hierarchy (probably, into "chassis" branch).

axes are X, Y and Z color lines that are drawn when you hover any object. on wheels these are in center of wheels, on doors they are at hinge point. on steering wheel, these should be at the center of the wheel.. and they should be rotated, so X goes left,Y goes to the wheel's upper circle point and Z points out of the wheel to the driver's head; I could be wrong on this, take a look on original models.

Well nevermind now. Found a very easy way to attach them automatically. I pressed under 'attach - options - auto attach (or like that)' and then I typed the name of the two things and voila! in 2 seconds I have a complete steering wheel!

Now, why do I have always white colour? Is this an texture issue? I already finished two cars. One of them has under the material browser 'paint1' materials (no paint 2) while the other car only has paint2. What is the difference and how can I make my car paintable ingame?

Well here it is I am glad to anounce that I've made my first conversation ever! Of course with help of some friends. Here is the Teaser for my car that's gonna be released tomorrow! Enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjLFSiAx4Ks

Things what I have to do on this car is:

it has digital dials so bring them to work
and breakable glass
and better textures. Talking about textures: how can I make them look better? There are some modders which release HQ textures for released cars. Which utilities to they use? I think photoshop, but how can they make it better there? Is there any forum to ask about this?

EDIT: If I extract gta4 files from my zmodeler2 as z3d files, a lot of files like the seats and exhaust are not extracted. Others can extract it, while I am having trouble. Why?

How should I make a groupped collision? Selecting all necessary collision objects, click on Group and then on Convert to COL Compound?

yes. make sure to assign MASS and E onto each component before you group them. setting MASS and/or E onto entire group is meaningless on export.

My finished car crashes ingame. It makes the game crash. I have textures which are 3 times the same in the texture browser. Could this cause the crash after spawning the car?

textures are barely the cause. especially they will not affect, if you put them into .ytd instead of making them embedded in a .yft file. most of game crash are caused by excessive detalization of the geometry. if it's not extremely high poly model, the hierarchy and collisions should be double-checked. make a re-import and take a look whether all names and all objects (and COLs) are on proper places.

Oleg, I can spawn the car in game but when I shoot it, it's like I'm shooting wood, if I shoot some parts it sprays gas out of it and I can not get in. Also, in OpenIV the wheel is near the trunk, but in-game it works too..

EDIT: Adding a seat_dside_f dummy worked and I can now drive. The other bugs are still there, though.

EDIT2:

there should be no wheel shown in OpenIV if you set up hierarchy properly.
bulled holes effect depends on COL object's per-poly ID you assign. Metal should have ID=116.

Oleg wrote:textures are barely the cause. especially they will not affect, if you put them into .ytd instead of making them embedded in a .yft file. most of game crash are caused by excessive detalization of the geometry. if it's not extremely high poly model, the hierarchy and collisions should be double-checked. make a re-import and take a look whether all names and all objects (and COLs) are on proper places.

Nevermind. It was my savegame... I can't explain myself how this can happen. I loaded an earlier savegame and it worked.

One question:

I am always having trouble with the material browser when it comes to the car's paint. I don't know what texture to put where. I have on my Passat only one paint1 which is called "vehicle generic smallspecmap paint1". So which texture must be put in which category? It is white ingame.

and must these files be in every material?

... mud
vehiclesenvmap
vehiclegenericsmallspecmap

Also have this annoying thing:

I cannot merge any part from a converted car (of mine)! I need the engine of the released car, but it doesn't put it into my current zmodeler car!

unpack textures from vehicle common/shared texture packs. import original vehicle and take a look on material's texture assignment. These are default and preferred textures to be used on your converted models. Of cause you can use your own textures in DETAIL , BUMPMAP and SPECMAP slots, but original are quite preferable. This subject is covered in video-tutorial (part 2), I suggest to watch the video first, especially when we discussing this in "[Guide] GTA4 to GTA5 Conversion Tutorial Videos" topic.

wheel is always showing in the Open IV, Oleg, same as the all default vehicles. But when it's in the center or somewhere else that's a bad sign.