GTA3 - CARMAKING : Tutorial

WARNING!!!
In this tutorial you dont find how to model mesh,
if you looking for this go to Zmodeler SITE,
and there, in documentation, is tutorial about modeling BMW .
Thist tutorial is about preparing model, preparing materials and Texturing.

PART 1: Model Prepare

Menu:

A little theory about cars in GTA

Model Parts.

Putting together Parts

Hierarchy

EXPORT

A little theory about cars in GTA

Cars in GTA3 should be low-poly. I'm writing about this becouse some of you doing almost high poly models;P
Car in GTA3 cant have many polys cos it may cause problems with texturing,
and more polygons cause game run slower. Look yourself for few orginal GTA3 cars:

SENTINEL

TAXI

BANSHEE
AS you see, more polys are there where we need them(for ex. banshee bonnet), but not everywhere like some of you doing.

MODEL PARTS.

Modlels for GTA are composed of two parts: Dummies and Mesh

Dummies - helper points for game engine.
Thanks to them the game knows where is door hinge or exhaust.

Dummies List:

Needed Dummies:

main_dummy - everything is linked to that dummy(in Hierarchy), you can name it as you want,
usually car name

taillights, brakelights, headlights, reverselights - dont need to explain

indicators_front i indicators_back - unknown

wheel_xx_dummy - xx - lf(left front), rf(right front), lb(left back), rb(right back)

chassis_dummy - the mesh parts is linked to it

chassis_vlo_headlights i chassis_vlo_taillights - lights in low-lev car(chassis_vlo - look below)

exhaust - dont need to explain;P)

ped_frontseat - dont need to explain

windscreen_dummy, wing_rf_dummy, wing_lf_dummy, boot_dummy, bonnet_dummy, bump_rear_dummy, bump_front_dummy - dummies that keep car parts

Optional Dummies(there are more, but I didnt check everything):

ped_backseat - dont need to explain

door_xx_dummy - doors... there can be 0, 2 ,4... in case of 0 we must modifiy handling.cfg and turn on NO_DOORS flag

MESH - car model;P. In GTA it is composed from few parts(some of them are optional)

Main Part is "chassis_hi". It is model base.

There are doors, wings, bumps, boot and bonnet -
this parts have 2 versions: with _ok("new parts") and with _dam(crashed)

Part LIST:

chassis_hi

chasis_vlo - low poly chassis, we see it when car is far

door_xx_hi_ok(_dam) - xx can be lf(left front), rf(right front), lb(left back), rb(right back) ; (lb and rb are optional)

bump_front_hi_ok(_dam) - dont need to explain

bump_rear_hi_ok(_dam) - dont need to explain

bonnet_hi_ok(_dam) - dont need to explain

boot_hi_ok(_dam) - dont need to explain

wing_lf_hi_ok(_dam) - dont need to explain

wing_rf_hi_ok(_dam) - dont need to explain

windscreen_hi_ok(_dam) - dont need to explain

Putting together Parts

About mesh, we must have all parts
but without that with _dam. We'll do _dam parts from _ok parts(very easly in Zmodeler), and game run without _dam(!!!).
What is important we texture only _ok parts, copy as a _dam parts(less work).

DUMMIES:

In our model there must be dummies that I've written about
Everything can be dummy... the best for this ist little cubes.
But I have a better idea, create new file, import some dff with car,
delete all non-dummy parts and save as dummies.z3d.
Now open file with your car and merge it with dummies.z3d file
If you dont want do this(you like lose time...;P) Do this - Make some cubes and rename it...

z toolbar.
Cube should have about 0.05 to 0.1(you can check it by clicking on it(on list) with right button and choos propeties).

DUMMIES Location

Dummies positions is very important so if you mess something, you'll have wheels on top of car ;P

main_dummy and chassis_dummy should be in (0;0). We chlick this button

and choose that two dummies from list.

We choose move from modify

and move our dummies to point (0;0)
Our car should be on (0;0) like this taxi

Dummies like wing dummy or windscreen_dummy(part dummies) we move to center of parts.
They propably define relation of _dam and _ok.
wheel_xx_dummy(xx -lf, rf, lb, rb); exhaust - everyone knows where
boot_dummy, bonnet_dummy, door_xx_dummy(xx - lf rf lr rr) - we put them on hinges

WARNING!!! Next dummies should be on right site of car!!!

You should know whre lights go on;P.
Indicators_front and indicators_back - on car ends.
Ped_frontseat and ped_backseat -no comments.
chassis_vlo_headlights and chassis_vlo_taillights - like headlights and taillights
Little help(taxi)

If we have all parts in modeler, there have good names and positions, we'll click

.
Now we select all dummies(only dummies), CTRL + A,
we choose GRAND THEFT AUTO 3 DFF filter from list and check "Dummy Object"

Hierarchy

We must link everythink or we'll have game crash;P.
We go to Hierarchy Browser

and we shoul see list with all parts
We must put in order this.
All mesh parts we link with dumies with same names(bonnet_hi_ok to bonnet_dummy etc).
Dummies with + wi link with chassis_dummy.We shoul get something like this(mayby not in the same order;P)

Next we doing this

aand this

EXPORT

If we do everything we export as mycar.dff.
Warning!!! Do a backup of gta.img and gta.dir
Go to IMG Tool, open gta.img and choose car to replace for ex. "diablos".
Select diablos.dff and rename it to "diablos.dff org" or something.
Add, choose your car(mycar.dff) and change name to diablos.dff.
Run GTA and if I didnt write something wrong or you didn't f*** up,
your car should be on the road.