Hey guys. I've been working on a new model for the Northern Faction inbetween hours of studying, and here's what I've got so far. It's kind of a cross between a jeep and a dune buggy. I'm pretty happy with the general shape of the body, wheels and fuel tank area. My goal apart from making a better looking model, it to increase visibility for the driver and make the weight more centered so it doesn't spin out as easily. Not satisfied with the front area yet, also needs more of that NF on-the-fly maintenance look. Thoughts?
It a good start. I like the fuel tank on the back and the altered roll bars. If you want, you could probably add a wind shield in the front. I also actually like how the grill looks, but I would probably place the two front lights in front of the lower part of the grill, atop the front bumper. The problems are that the seats currently look like flat boards. Try to make them more like cushions. Another thing is that you will get problems with the steering, considering how the front wheels are now. There is no place for them to turn. Spacing them out farther and putting in some more suspension in there as flasche said might help. I also get what you wanted to achieve with the tires, but seriously NF tires have been one of my main annoyances with this game so far. You could try to add a bit more detail on the profile there. And since you put in front lights, rear lights would also add some nice detail.
Is it possible to make working suspension in Empires where an axle follows the wheel as it goes up and down? The seats kinda suck at the moment, I was thinking of making some kind of bucket seats when I have time. I'll also see if I can add a wind shield without obstructing the view too much, it def. looks better with one.
a borderless windshield shouldnt be obstructing your view. also if i compair the seats to the rest of the vehicle its gigantic. the tires look like theyd be 1.5m in diameter.
The front looks very 1940's classic racer, but with the wheels and the bars the fusion is pretty interesting. It looks like the drive would be pretty awesome, like a real fast car.
I wouldn't worry about the seats. They are covered by players anyway. No one is ever going to go, "oh my god, those seats are fucking awesome!" Your eye gets drawn to other areas first.
To me it seems like this would be a better fit for BE. Isn't it built into source.. Pretty sure that it's just that no one has ever animated suspension on anything.
I mean a suspension in general is possible. We already have those on the tank road wheels. What is currently not possible, as far as I know, is that you can make the actual suspension between the wheel and chassis rotate up and down like a real suspension would. You could just move the whole suspension along with the wheel, but that would look a tad silly. It's actually quite complex. I mean just look at what you have to do, to get one into UE4: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Physics/Vehicles/DoubleWishboneVehicle/index.html At the same time I can't even find anything even remotely discussing the topic for Source. Even the Half Life 2 Scout Car didn't actually have a moving suspension. And I don't agree on that this would fit BE better. Redskull actually found a pretty good art style for NF with consistent design elements, mostly consisting of round shapes. When I get around to it, I'll see if I can do the opposite (hard edges) for BE.
That's why I said it seems a better fit for BE this jeep looks boxy. Maybe with more detail and color it will fit NF more. In my head I imagine it black and it just really seems like a perfect BE fit. Pretty sure it would just need the right rigging. As in a suspension bone that would move up and down with the wheels. It would need an animation for contracted and fully extended. Could always decompile the hl2 jeeps and copy what they did.
I don't really think it would fit. What I imagine for a new BE jeep for example is a mixture of this mixed with this. That is what I mean with angular design. Compared to that the jeep might look boxy, but it has a lot of rounded elements. Actually you are right, the Half Life 2 scout car had that. I just looked at a gameplay video of it. I didn't even remember/notice that before. Still it's a pretty simplified method of doing it. The one that just moves the wheel straight up and down. And still that is nothing a modeler can do without coding support. I can imagine numerous ways, but it's nothing you can simply provide to the engine via SMD/MDL files.
The code support is built in. The issue is that only the wheels are linked in the suspension animation. "Because steering, suspension and wheel rotation are all animation you can map them to anything. You can animated flexing dune-buggy suspensions or counter rotating wheel pieces, etc. These won’t be simulated by the physics system, but they will appear to be simulated because they will be precisely coordinated with the simulation. You’ll need the following pose parameters to map the simulation onto the animation." source - https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Vehicles_%28modeling%29
