Maffc's 3D Stuff updated 02/10/2015

[NormanVauxhall]

I installed the community pack. I'll check what I could do wrong.
Don't worry if you don't reply.

Stay strong.

[Kubboz]

Maybe the community pack's version of the car is outdated?

[maffc]

Hi All

1980s Boxy Supermini (Updated 16/04/2015) ***Please note this mod is no longer available for download as it is included in the base game***
My Second mod is inspired by the 1980s Fiat Panda.
It comes in 4 variants:
Original 3 Door Hatch.
5 Door Hatch, which can be morphed into a reasonable wagon, although the back doors might be a bit cramped.
4 Door Saloon, might some might think is weird, but Vauxhall/Opel did it with the Nova/Corsa and BL considered making one from the Metro.
A van, basically the 3 door with blanked out rear windows and not the one Fiat actually made which looked like they installed a dorma window to the back.

EDIT: I have since added a 2dr "Coupe" (Saloon). It's an additional download and requires the main pack to be complete.

Extract Zip contents to \Automation\assets\meshes\cars\Front\Small (Folder location varies depending if you are a steam user or not)


Coupe

Boxy2dr.JPG (34.96 KiB) Viewed 4921 times

I Hope you enjoy and as always feedback is welcomed.

[TrackpadUser]

Nice model with lots of variants, there are a few things I think you could make better though.

1- The wheelarches

This is something that have been bugging me since that post you made in the car suggestion thread.
The shape of you flares is very uneven, some corners look nice, some don't, and the thickness has obvious variations.
One thing I would recommend, is to use a basic shape as a guide, and make one nice looking flare. Then, use that flare for both the front and the back, while making sure they both are at the same height.
Also, for the flare morphs, IMHO it would look nice if it deformed only the flare.

2- The windshield

If you ask me, the morph that changes the bow of the windshield doesn't look very good and creates a lot of weird reflections.
If I had a suggestion to make, look at the front windshield of the 80s sedan. One morph move the entire windshield equally, as well as the door seams, and an other one changes the angle of the windshield.
There is also a small mesh issue on the upper corners of the sedan's windshield.

3- Hood hump.

Once again, this is my own opinion, but the side of hood humps should preferably be a separate smoothing group. Right now the hump looks like a blob.
Also, minor thing on the 5 door, the reflection on the side of the hood does a zigzag, I would reverify that all the triangles are heading the same way.

4- Back side windows on the 4-5 doors.

The back side windows have very obvious reflection issues, I would also check the smoothing groups on the back door window frame.
As for the morphing, I would try to very slightly move a few more verts on the back pillar, so it doesn't clip.

5- Back morphs.

Lets start with the sedan.
I really like the way the window morphs, although it tends to get major reflection issues when morphing it.
As for the trunk, while it has 3 morphs, I feel like I have less freedom than with the 80s sedan. You can probably make it so it can become shorter. Also, currently it is impossible to have an angled trunk when it's at it's shortest.

As for the hatchbacks.
I am personally not a fan of the way it works. While you have a lot of morphs, some are hard to select and not a lot of combinations look great. IMHO a better solution might be to have one morph that moves the whole thing, one morph that changes the angle of the window and one that changes the angle of the lower part.

Apart from this, very nice work with a lot of potential.

[8bs]

Apart from all that, great work man!!!!

[maffc]

Hi TrackPad, Thanks for your feedback. I will be working on revising the models and will look at all the points and faults you raise.
I am not completely happy with the wheel arches either, Especially the front one. Despite them matching the blue prints they do look odd. Seems the Panda was a little oddly shaped there IRL. (The 1st models didn't even have flares on the rear, just a 'hole').
I will lower the front one, however most real world cars do not have equal height arches. The rear one is usually lower.

[frisco557]

I will lower the front one, however most real world cars do not have equal height arches. The rear one is usually lower.

That's true. A lot of American cars have covered rear wheels like the '50s Cadillac body we have in game. Even normal cars like my Civic or a 914 have lower rear arches.

[Leonardo9613]

Nice work, really good stuff.
Although I agree with trackpaduser when he says that the rear morphs are a bit over the top. Also, I think you could do without the bonnet bulge, or if you could make that morphable, so we didn't need to have it.

Are you planning some other car sizes based on this one, as you did with the Princess?
Because if you made it a bit longer, wider and lower, you would end up with a Fiat Uno, a car I have fond memories of. And making it even bigger would result in a Fiat Tipo, thus covering most of 80s italian supermini design.

[maffc]

Cheers Leonardo,

I'm currently tweaking the models to address the issues Trackpad' raised. This will include simplified rear end morphing.
Q: Should simplifying the back end include pinning the side window morphs to the rear pillar or should they remain independent?

I will also look at the bonnet hump.

As for different sized versions, the short answer is no.
The long answer is the Panda's styling was fairly minimalist, using completely flat glass panels which I personally don't think would suit larger versions of it. I do however plan more direct models of both the Uno and Tipo / Tempra. My 1st car was a 1986 Uno 45s with the 999cc FIRE engine. So I too have very fond memories of them. It set me down the path of loving Italian cars. I also had a 1994 Fiat Tempra, which I also through was great, so I personally I would like their spiritual presence in the game to be a bit more than scaled up pandas.

[HighOctaneLove]

I'm currently tweaking the models to address the issues Trackpad' raised. This will include simplified rear end morphing.
Q: Should simplifying the back end include pinning the side window morphs to the rear pillar or should they remain independent?

I think leaving the side window morphs unpinned allows for fascinating design opportunities... Not that I'll use them, of course, I only do tastefully conservative designs!

[Leonardo9613]

About the side window morphs, I forgot to mention, but I do like them. It is very neat to have the rear indow shape exactly as we want, that is something that bugged me on some vanilla cars, because depending on which morphs are used, the design ends up ungainly, something that will never occur with your set up.

[TrackpadUser]

You can keep the window independent, but I would try tweaking the morph so it doesn't have the issues it has currently, where it create a weird thing in the reflections and clip through the other verts.

This could by adding a smallish weight to the verts it's clipping into, although that may be complicated to do w/o the whole thing ending up poking out the back of the car..

[maffc]

This could by adding a smallish weight to the verts it's clipping into, although that may be complicated to do w/o the whole thing ending up poking out the back of the car..

Yep I think it will be Impossible to prevent a user from moving the window morph past the end of pillar if they don't move the pillar far enough the accommodate it, without restricting the window morph. Still, if the user wants to create such a car then who are to say no

Shame we can't do some form of collision detection to prevent it.

[maffc]

Hi All,

I have updated the 80s Boxy Supermini following feedback. Changes Include defect corrections, revised wheelarches, smoothing and hopefully less fussy rear morphzones.

http://www.automationgame.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=5544&start=40#p67898

regards

Mat

[TrackpadUser]

I finally got around to rechecking it and I have to say that it is very nice.

Only thing I would add, when you have the time, is a two door coupe variant.