Need vehicle prefab Help!

[Silver_Ibex]

I need some lowpoly prefabs of normal bland everyday cars to place in my next map the most important thing is they be lowpoly and conservative with texture usage, fist_mlrs posted an audi a8 prefab. It was almost perfect except it uses to many textures when they could have been compressed into a body texture and one wheel pic but otherwise I’m looking for ones that look like it.

Below is an overhead shot of the map, as you can see the streets need vehicles.

[Nikoomba]

I'd like to help you out Ibex but I'm pretty tied up with my P19 models.

[fist_mlrs]

i have redone it some days ago and cut down the amount of textures used to three. hope it works better now.

[wint-o-green]

Nice looking downtown there Ibex, looks like it will be a fun map to play.

[Gullonefox]

Very sweet!

[Silver_Ibex]

YES!!!
That is excellent, just what I’m looking for.
Thanks fist_mlrs

[Silver_Ibex]

Shot of it placed in the map

[Starstreams]

Here is all that I know of
http://www.planettribes.com/catalog/

http://www.nin64.com/prefabland/showgt.asp?gametype=4

Prefab central will be opining again is a real soon, and should have a ton of new ones that every before. You might want to email the guys; he might have something for you so you don’t have to wait. http://www.unreality.org/prefabs/

If you have Max, you might wasn’t to look among the thousands of 3Dmodels here: http://www.3dcafe.com/asp/meshes.asp

Some of them are a low poly count, and will work great in the ED
If you don’t have Max, and see something you like, let me know and I will convert it for you if in max format, given that is in not animated.

-Mike-

[Silver_Ibex]

I don’t own a copy of Max, I looked though the selection and these ones caught my eye, if you converted any of them that would be super, I’m sure others would also appreciate the availability of more Prefabs

http://www.3dcafe.com/models/fordescort.zip
http://www.3dcafe.com/models/fordpickup.zip
http://www.3dcafe.com/models/chevyvan.zip
http://www.3dcafe.com/models/camaro4.zip
http://www.3dcafe.com/models/mirage.zip
http://www.3dcafe.com/models/volare.zip
http://www.3dcafe.com/models/jeepwrangler.zip
http://www.3dcafe.com/models/jetta.zip

Could you just convert the main body of the vehicle, leaving out the wheels and other superfluous details so as to cut down on polygons.

[Starstreams]

Man, them cars are nice looking, but their way too high node counts. I can save them in the right format but I don’t think I can reduce the nodes. Also, I didn’t realize that all them prefabs are animated. Ahh.....sorry about that.

The car in the picture probably has more faced edges then your whole map.
I’ll see if I can do a search on some low poly count vehicles, have you tried emailing that guy form Prefab Central? There were some hummers at that one link I posted, but now the links not working for some reason. I can’t understand why it’s so hard to find Unreal prefabs, yet Quake has a million? I’ll try to find some.

[Silver_Ibex]

Here is an idea, render the vehicles in Max with all the special effects turned on (try to make the windows as black as possible).

Then take a Front, Back, and Side shot of each so these can be turned into textures, Which can be used like how My Bronco was made (using the 2d shape editor to trace out the vehicles)
I can compile the three shots into a single texture if you send them to me

[Starstreams]

I’m still new to max, I just though that if you got some un-animated models, I could save it in the right format for you, but these animated models, are bringing up a million dialog boxes with options I have no idea what they mean. Here are two of the windows that popped up, out of about 6?

Hay Silver, by the way: I just downloaded ctf-appalachian-wonderland.zip! Very cool map! hope to see it online! That bronco is the same one I drive.

-Mike-

[Silver_Ibex]

Ok, I’ll figure something out.

[Starstreams]

Sorry, I wish I know more about Max, I just bough a book about the size of my desk, I’ve only reached the second chapter. Got about 65 to go.

I’ll keep my eyes open, and like I said, try emailing the guy at Prefab Central. As a mater of fact, I saw a converter for converting quake prefabs to DXF, but all the links are dead, and I found nothing while doing a search. the name of the utillity is listed at Prefab Central, but it’s nowhere to be found.

[krate]

You can simplify a mesh in max too, so if you like the car model you can reduce the mesh to something more appropriate. Conert it to an editable mesh, and look down the list of modifiers.

[Antedeluge]

I didn't see one for simplification. I cannot resist any longer. I will now attempt to learn 3DSMax 4. Wish me luck.

Edit: I found a simplifying modifier called "Optimize" although I don't think it will simplify those really high poly models enough. Even after severe optimization, the Jetta model still has 400+ faces.

Edit #2: Well with even more experimentation I got the faces under 200, but the wheels start to look pretty sad, and the car looks like it was involved in a serious accident.

[Nikoomba]

Let me throw in my 2 cents as a modeller that uses 3D Studio Max 3.1 and 4.

By the looks of it those cars have been created with a moderate poly count, and then a meshsmooth modifier was applied. This doubles, triples etc the number of polys on an object to effect 'smooth it out'. If this modifier is applied on the 3D Cafe model, you may be able to delete the modifier, and return it to it's original count. The way I'd do it though is recreate the car, in max, over the old one. Just in low poly form. use the first one as a reference (references of every side of an object are hard to find, so a model is good to use) and create it over/next to the old one. Obviously you have to be able to use Max to be able to do this, but it's just what I'd do.

With regards to your troubles Starstreams, the maps it searches for are the textures that came with the model from 3D Cafe. Also I'd say the DLLs are either custom and could be found at the site, or are with a different version of Max. The DLLs look like they control the kinds of animations (I have no idea what's animated). I used to frequent 3D Cafe quite a bit, it's got some handy textures, tutorials and models to use as reference. However, the models that people post there are like my old ones with a poly count over 30,000. They're not really useful for a mod/game.

Anyway I hope I was some kind of help.

[Nikoomba]

By the way, the Optimize editor can lower the poly count a bit, but with an extremely high poly model like that it's not going to do anywhere near enough.

[Starstreams]

Ya, as far as what was animated, it was the doors. When I hit the play button, all the doors on the car open. This is max 4 by the way. I just can’t wait till the days when computers are fast enough do Max quality renderd scenes


Here something, but the dam link is not working, http://www.unreality.org/prefabs/prgms/doscon.html
Is this what I think it is, for converting Quake, and half life prefabs to Unreal. Maby I should email this guy.

[Lord Mortifa]

and look here :

http://www.unreality.org/prefabs/prgms/

everything you want eh ? just not working...