Comments of the car designer

[JussiE]

First of all: the foundation implemented in the designer is great. Everything that has been done works really nice. There is few points that I would be able to adjust:

1. Car overall length (so that i could make small sedan or really big luxury sedan from same "template"
2. Wheelbase (this connects right back to the first suggestion)
3. Roof height
4. On 4-door saloon you can't adjust the rear bumper separarely, bug or not?

Other things:
Sunshine from the room window should reflect to the right side of the car. Not a big miss but if you are making dark car (fex. Black, navy blue etc) it's really hard to see the door handles. If the light would reflect from the right side of the car it would be lot easier to adjust the handles etc.

Maybe not easy to make to work but it would be nice if you could stretch the rear window more so that you could make estate/wagon version easily from sedan. this way it would be very simple to revise the design and make a estate version from sedan model and it would actually look the same.

One question also. After you have put anything on car, headlights, badges, anything. Is it really so that you are not able to change the shape of the car? I don't know if this would be even possible but it's shame that you can't shape the car more after you have seen it with lights and everythin fitted on it...

Just the first thoughts and I would really like to point out that the designer is great even at the moment. I'm really enjoying making different models and it's already really versatile tool to make very different kind of cars from only few templates.


Ps. Edited after thinking a little more. Maybe some of my suggestions are regarding the platform designer (which we don't see at the moment) more than the model designer. But none of the less here were my thoughts and I would like to see them implemented in the more finalized version.

[Driver69]

Thank you for making an awesome car designer as part of an awesome game. The fact that there is now a modern game that allows us to create this is great.

The car designer is really great overall and I would like to add some thoughts about how to improve it.

Cut and paste option for fixtures - so that we can repeat certain fixtures without having to edit a new version of it.

Undo/redo button that keeps track of multiple step. Similar to how you can undo/redo many steps in the Sims 3 build/buy mode.

Ability to use single fixtures on more than just exhaust. For example to create one long light to stretch across the back, etc.

Keep fixtures after changing body style. I hope in the final version there will be a way to move between coupe, convertible, and sedan styles without erasing the fixtures on a car.

[Daffyflyer]

First of all: the foundation implemented in the designer is great. Everything that has been done works really nice. There is few points that I would be able to adjust:

1. Car overall length (so that i could make small sedan or really big luxury sedan from same "template"
2. Wheelbase (this connects right back to the first suggestion)
3. Roof height
4. On 4-door saloon you can't adjust the rear bumper separarely, bug or not?

1. There will be larger versions of some of the same bodies (like the sedan) to suit larger chassis sizes
2. See question 1
3. Hard to do nicely sadly.
4. The adjustments are always based on what happens to work well on each body model, bumper adjustment didn't work well on the sedan

if you could stretch the rear window more so that you could make estate/wagon version easily from sedan.

Hard to do, so there will just be choices of Sedan/Coupe/Wagon versions of the same body.

One question also. After you have put anything on car, headlights, badges, anything. Is it really so that you are not able to change the shape of the car?

Yeah, bit of a technical limitation of the way we stamp things. this MIGHT improve, we'll see

Sunshine from the room window should reflect to the right side of the car.

Yep, the lighting isn't quite right yet, we'll see how that goes

[WizzyThaMan]

Thank you for making an awesome car designer as part of an awesome game. The fact that there is now a modern game that allows us to create this is great.

The car designer is really great overall and I would like to add some thoughts about how to improve it.

Cut and paste option for fixtures - so that we can repeat certain fixtures without having to edit a new version of it.

Undo/redo button that keeps track of multiple step. Similar to how you can undo/redo many steps in the Sims 3 build/buy mode.

Ability to use single fixtures on more than just exhaust. For example to create one long light to stretch across the back, etc.

Keep fixtures after changing body style. I hope in the final version there will be a way to move between coupe, convertible, and sedan styles without erasing the fixtures on a car.

Cut and past and undo/redo is already noted down Do not know if this will become available in a public patch anytime soon (Daffy?)
Single fixtures will become an option eventually.
And last one, as Daffy said, some technical problems with changing body while fixtures are on. Might become a problem later on. But my idea on this is that you could save presets of already made fixtures so as soon as you want to make a convertible or wagon versio on your sedan car, you can load the preset for it and use the exact same headlights, vents and other fixtures.

[JussiE]

1. There will be larger versions of some of the same bodies (like the sedan) to suit larger chassis sizes
2. See question 1

I don't know what you have planned and I don't want to ruin your design but would it be a lot easier for you if the same model scales for use in small to big cars? So you would need to make fewer templates... Of course this only impacts on the 3D-stuff. Maybe the actual coding how the model functions might be harder to implement.

Hard to do, so there will just be choices of Sedan/Coupe/Wagon versions of the same body.

It would be great if we could change a sedan to a wagon "on the fly"? It would at least be good option. So you could make a sedan and then revise it to be a wagon. Front part stays the same and you'll only need to design the rear of the car...

[WizzyThaMan]

It would be great if we could change a sedan to a wagon "on the fly"? It would at least be good option. So you could make a sedan and then revise it to be a wagon. Front part stays the same and you'll only need to design the rear of the car...

Thats the problem. Getting the body to deform good without mistakes is incredibly hard to do. It is easier to actually just put a different model shape as template with the back end looking like Sedan/Wagon/Convertible, leaving the front intact.

[DuratecDriver]

I'll use this topic to give a couple of suggestions:

- An undo/redo button, will be very nice, especially when you accidentaly move/stretch something that took you time to do.
- A copy/paste command, very useful when you have to do multiple headlights or taillights and you want them to be identical each other, same for the grilles.

[Juno8]

to sum up the car creator...

1. its Brilliant
2. doesnt over work the graphics card
3. really gets your creative side out...

things that need to be worked on

1. more adjustments on the design of the bodyshell of the car (I know thats coming)
2. more car bodies, so Muscle, Supercar and others that I cant name

that for me sums up the Car Creator so far great work guys keep working at it!

[JussiE]

2. more car bodies, so Muscle, Supercar and others that I cant name

Yes they could be better but you can actually make quite nice muscle and supercar from the 2-door saloon template already...

[DuratecDriver]

They gave us an early glimpse of how good it's the deformability and the customization aspect of the designer. Obviously it wasn't intended to room all bodies etc..they will come

[WizzyThaMan]

I'll use this topic to give a couple of suggestions:

- An undo/redo button, will be very nice, especially when you accidentaly move/stretch something that took you time to do.
- A copy/paste command, very useful when you have to do multiple headlights or taillights and you want them to be identical each other, same for the grilles.

Read up, second poster said this already. Being worked on.

to sum up the car creator...
things that need to be worked on

1. more adjustments on the design of the bodyshell of the car (I know thats coming)
2. more car bodies, so Muscle, Supercar and others that I cant name

that for me sums up the Car Creator so far great work guys keep working at it!

Dont be silly Juno8. The game is finished like this. There won't be anymore carbodies to add!
I hope all doors are closed in your house, or you keep falling for kicking in open doors.

[DuratecDriver]

dang! Sorry Wizzy, absolutely didn't see that post

[WizzyThaMan]

No problem mate, just pointing it out for you

[zeussy]

In regards to deforming the body after fixtures has been placed is pretty hard. As you can see when you place new fixtures, they have valid/invalid spots they can be placed. As you change the shape of the car, you get to points where the head light is no longer valid at the position it was, or any other fixture type for that matter.

You could test all the fixtures, and stop the player from deforming the body if you get to a point where it will stop a fixture from working. But there is also a performance impact on this. Placing/testing fixtures is an expensive operation. With hundreds of rays being cast per fixture. The car is not just isolated sections either (front, rear, etc). So currently deforming the front of the car would require all fixtures to be tested.

[RedRiot]

I enjoy to play around with the designer, it made a big progress since the first trial version. It's easy and fun to use.

I like to use the "cutouts", "lips", and the hood fixtures - these parts are very handy in making the car more detailed and personal. I think some more similar parts would be great - like side mouldings which would act similarly like the bumper lips just their place would be on the side of the car.
Lips: chrome and rubber material lips could be used as bumper inserts.
Different sized and shaped cutouts would be also usefull - even with the three present cutouts you can do interesting effects on the body.
Maybe adding these kind of parts would be easier than adding more deforming points to the bodyshell without making bugs.

Anyway, the desiger is great even now, all it need is many more base-bodies and fixtures!