Our ReVolt Pub

Hi, I decided to try my hand at making my first custom car for Re-Volt, taking the challenge of making the three-wheeled Reliant Robin. Obvious stability problems aside, the car works but it seems to have some model issues.

Since jigebren's Blender plugin is still unreleased, I tried NiklasHassdal's version, which had some scaling issues but I easily solved them. However, there are a few problems with the texture/polygons: the bottom of the car and the sides of the wheels are invisible. I've checked normals but couldn't find anything wrong with the model itself in Blender, so I assumed it was something wrong with the exporter.

The parameters file the exporter spat out was also slightly problematic (one problem was that it seemed to leave behind a ghost model of the car's body), so I took the R6 Turbo's file as a base, placing both wheels in the same place (a little more stable than removing one of the front wheels, somehow), but now the camera appears to be too close to the car. I haven't tweaked the parameters file much beyond that, so some handling help would be handy too. (And please don't tell me to use 4 wheels -- I took the challenge for a reason )

The texture is also provisory -- I just patched together the same blueprints I used to make the model itself.

Here's the car: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/943 ... /robin.zip
And here's the Blender file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/943 ... bin2.blend

Could anyone shed some light on my issues? Thank you.

rear wheel drive cars are tricky to set-up. however the camera issue probably stems from the Com being to low (as do a number of handling issues) try setting the Com to 0 -1.5 1
other things you may wish to change; engine ratio (wheel 2-3) to 9000.000000
wheels 0-1
staticfriction 1.750000
kineticfriction 1.650000
max pos 3
wheels 2-3
staticfriction 1.810000
kineticfrition 1.750000
max pos 3
note;
I believe Re-volt only reads out to 6 decimal places.
hth
Rex
edit
my 1st thought when I loaded the car was that you had a true black problem...and you do your bmq file has areas of true black where they shouldn't be(likely introduced by your graphics program when you resized). then I discovered that your wheels seem to be missing a few 'faces'. you might want to check that.
R

Rexreynolds @ Dec 29 2013, 06:39 AM wrote: my 1st thought when I loaded the car was that you had a true black problem...and you do your bmq file has areas of true black where they shouldn't be(likely introduced by your graphics program when you resized). then I discovered that your wheels seem to be missing a few 'faces'. you might want to check that.

Me and a friend did think that but we then figured we'd still at least see the middle hubcap, plus we tried with a completely solid color to the same effect.

I'm guessing the PRM exporter I'm using (referenced in my first post) is at fault for the missing faces.

When using two wheels to simulate one, always check that both wheel values are semetrically equal.
After using the car I noticed a pulling to the left, so looking at your params I noticed that wheel 1 had offset2 set to -2 when it should be 2, that solves the pulling left issue.

Although the low friction values of the wheels make this car slippy to handle IMO (but thats your choice), changing the COM position might produce a smoother ride.

Manmountain @ Jan 6 2014, 01:38 PM wrote: When using two wheels to simulate one, always check that both wheel values are semetrically equal.
After using the car I noticed a pulling to the left, so looking at your params I noticed that wheel 1 had offset2 set to -2 when it should be 2, that solves the pulling left issue.

Although the low friction values of the wheels make this car slippy to handle IMO (but thats your choice), changing the COM position might produce a smoother ride.

The symmetry issues are probably because I'm using the R6 Turbo's parameters as base -- at least it handles better than the Blender exporter's generated parameters.

My main issues now are:
1) The exporter seems to not export models properly (missing faces)
2) The camera is too zoomed in
3) I have not yet tried to fix the aerial/antenna position (is this related to the camera? The exported parameters didn't show an aerial at all but the camera was okay, the R6 turbo's parameters put the aerial inside the car and the camera is really close up)

Removing one of the wheels for a more true 3-wheel handling is also an issue: the engine doesn't seem to like less than 4 wheels, resulting in a copy of the first loaded model (for example the body, but changing the order of models can make this be a wheel) getting "stuck" wherever the car (re)spawned, without any collisions or anything, just a graphical bug.

EDIT: It's worth noting again I am not using the so-touted new exporter from jigebren which still hasn't been released. I am using another one which doesn't seem to be as well developed and doesn't export world models, only cars.

Svetlana @ Jan 6 2014, 01:50 PM wrote: 2) The camera is too zoomed in

This issue is the COM values in the"Handling related stuff" section,
1st value is side to side or left to right of the car, the 2nd value is bottom to top of the car, the 3rd is front to back of the car. I would set the 2nd value to 0 then test, then adjust lower -1 or higher +1 until correct camera angle and desired feel of the car is reached.

3) I have not yet tried to fix the aerial/antenna position (is this related to the camera? The exported parameters didn't show an aerial at all but the camera was okay, the R6 turbo's parameters put the aerial inside the car and the camera is really close up)

This issue is not conected to the COM but is actually the Offset value in the "Car Aerial details" section. Like with the COM values adjust until the aerial is in the desired position.

Removing one of the wheels for a more true 3-wheel handling is also an issue: the engine doesn't seem to like less than 4 wheels, resulting in a copy of the first loaded model (for example the body, but changing the order of models can make this be a wheel) getting "stuck" wherever the car (re)spawned, without any collisions or anything, just a graphical bug.

Rather than try to remove the wheel totally just set the IsPresent to FALSE and select a ModelNum where there is no model, say 10.

As for exporter help, I have no idea I don't use em.

Manmountain @ Jan 6 2014, 06:34 PM wrote:

Svetlana @ Jan 6 2014, 01:50 PM wrote: 2) The camera is too zoomed in

This issue is the COM values in the"Handling related stuff" section,
1st value is side to side or left to right of the car, the 2nd value is bottom to top of the car, the 3rd is front to back of the car. I would set the 2nd value to 0 then test, then adjust lower -1 or higher +1 until correct camera angle and desired feel of the car is reached.

This is strange, because the exported car's parameters had the COM at dead 0 and the camera was fine, but the R6 has the COM further back and the camera is further forward, so I didn't think the center of mass was related to the camera.

3) I have not yet tried to fix the aerial/antenna position (is this related to the camera? The exported parameters didn't show an aerial at all but the camera was okay, the R6 turbo's parameters put the aerial inside the car and the camera is really close up)

This issue is not conected to the COM but is actually the Offset value in the "Car Aerial details" section. Like with the COM values adjust until the aerial is in the desired position.

I didn't think the aerial had anything do to with the center of mass, only that maybe the aerial position influenced the camera since I didn't think the center of mass influenced it. I will try to set it, I just haven't touched it yet.

Removing one of the wheels for a more true 3-wheel handling is also an issue: the engine doesn't seem to like less than 4 wheels, resulting in a copy of the first loaded model (for example the body, but changing the order of models can make this be a wheel) getting "stuck" wherever the car (re)spawned, without any collisions or anything, just a graphical bug.

Rather than try to remove the wheel totally just set the IsPresent to FALSE and select a ModelNum where there is no model, say 10.

I did try setting IsPresent to FALSE, but that caused the game to crash. I didn't change the model though, so I will try that.

As for exporter help, I have no idea   I don't use em.

What would you recommend then?

Svetlana @ Jan 6 2014, 09:36 PM wrote:This is strange, because the exported car's parameters had the COM at dead 0 and the camera was fine, but the R6 has the COM further back and the camera is further forward, so I didn't think the center of mass was related to the camera.

You wouldn't think that a virtual weight placement value has anything to do with a virtual visual perspective, but it does.
I would recomend you use the rvcenter tool from the rvminis pack, as this will recenter your body model and make it easier to work with. Your exported body model may be too high relative to it's 0,0,0 position.

As for exporter help, I have no idea   I don't use em.

What would you recommend then?

I meant, I have no clue how to use any kind of 3D modeler or exporter program/tool. So I can not recomend anything, sorry .