Ceej Tries to Make an ARCA Mod

[Ceej]

I have started attempting to make a present-day ARCA mod that mixes both the current Five Star composite bodies and the older "Gen 4" bodies that were phased out when the new bodies were introduced in 2015. One could recreate cars going back to 2010 with this mod, which is when the big shark fins were mandated.

No guarantees that this gets finished as I barely have any idea what I'm doing, but this is something I've been wanting to see, and learning how to model for this game has been a goal of mine anyway, so I'm determined to take this as far as I can. Mystical's openness about his ICR mod and his current YouTube tutorial series have been a huge help in getting me to start this.

I think I'm doing okay with just the modeling phase right now. I'll be upfront that I cheated and brought in the 2015 Bullring Gen 6 Chevy and the NNC 2007 Ford as references to build around, but the models are otherwise my own.

The four planned models will be short track and superspeedway variants of both the Gen 4 and Gen 6 bodies, all made with generic shapes to accommodate every type of car that showed up during this period, as well as to give people room to make custom templates.

The three models I have right now are shown below; the composite car only has the superspeedway trim at the moment.

Feedback will be appreciated as I work on this.

 

[Bernfinger]

so far so good, keep it up

 

[DaleTona]

I have started attempting to make a present-day ARCA mod that mixes both the current Five Star composite bodies and the older "Gen 4" bodies that were phased out when the new bodies were introduced in 2015. One could recreate cars going back to 2010 with this mod, which is when the big shark fins were mandated.

No guarantees that this gets finished as I barely have any idea what I'm doing, but this is something I've been wanting to see, and learning how to model for this game has been a goal of mine anyway, so I'm determined to take this as far as I can. Mystical's openness about his ICR mod and his current YouTube tutorial series have been a huge help in getting me to start this.

I think I'm doing okay with just the modeling phase right now. I'll be upfront that I cheated and brought in the 2015 Bullring Gen 6 Chevy and the NNC 2007 Ford as references to build around, but the models are otherwise my own.

The four planned models will be short track and superspeedway variants of both the Gen 4 and Gen 6 bodies, all made with generic shapes to accommodate every type of car that showed up during this period, as well as to give people room to make custom templates.

The three models I have right now are shown below; the composite car only has the superspeedway trim at the moment.

Feedback will be appreciated as I work on this.

View attachment 96304

I'm very interested in the Gen4/steel bodies. Though a Generic Gen6 is equally as juicy.

If anything Ceej, you are the one who got me to get NR2003 back in 2014/2015 after watching your ARLA Elite series(Now the FARC Lowe Dollar Series)

 

[Ceej]

Some profile views with wires visible for a better look at the geometry, which will probably display my inexperience with modeling. The rear passenger windows will be fake on all models for manufacturer variation and sticker placement options.

 

[Joeymj1]

Some profile views with wires visible for a better look at the geometry, which will probably display my inexperience with modeling. The rear passenger windows will be fake on all models for manufacturer variation and sticker placement options.

View attachment 96322

View attachment 96323

View attachment 96324

Oh boy

 

[2pac Shakur]

This will be awesome.

 

[Joeymj1]

I’ll do a 2015 sim season after I paint every car imaginable

 

[Ceej]

The UV mapping adventure begins. I think I'm going to stop complaining so much about odd warping on other templates.

For anyone with insight on this process, my gut feeling is that I ought to keep the grid as straight as possible on the model. Is this accurate?

 

[Bernfinger]

The UV mapping adventure begins. I think I'm going to stop complaining so much about odd warping on other templates.

For anyone with insight on this process, my gut feeling is that I ought to keep the grid as straight as possible on the model. Is this accurate?

View attachment 96414

I'm not an expert in this topic but keeping it as straight as possinble might make it easier to paint

 

[Mystical]

A good start, always glad to see more people get into NR mods. If you ever need guidance I can try to answer questions best I can. As for your UV phase the 2 most important things to remember (in terms of a NR mod for unwrapping) is:

1) Since painters will be painting on the car body the more sections you can stitch together the better generally if it means you don't have to compromise in UV warping. For example the side of the car connected to the hood is always something painters like to see.

2) The next very important aspect is every UV shell is the same or very close to similar texel density. Texel density is the 'size' (aka resolution) of each shell in regards to eachother. So for example if you unwrap the hood but then you unwrap the front bumper and its much smaller in size then it will make it difficult for painters because they are not the same resolution in the UV space. What this would do for example is if you painted a line from the bumper to the hood the line on the bumper would be more more blurry and larger than the hood section. So the best way to unwrap and ensure each shell is the same resolution is by making sure the checkerboard (in this case blender is the rainbow colored one) are all the same size for each unwrapped part. Another method is using a tool that can auto-detect this, thats how I unwrapped my ICR mod using 3d Coat's unwrapping tools. Blender may even have an add-on for more sophisticated unwrapping tools to make the process easier.

Once you have unwrapped the car body before moving on and calling it a day its always a good test to export that unwrap as a texture in your paint program and do quick mock paints to it and see how it looks in blender and possibly fix any UV errors. It becomes much harder to adjust UV stuff later becasue it means having to reimport and recompile all over again sicne each time you reunwrap a model its essentially a new one.

 

[Ceej]

I really appreciate the advice, I was hoping to hear from at least one person who has gone through this.

I'm at work so I don't have the project in front of me as I write this, but I have initial wrapping in place for the sides, roof, hood, and front bumper/fenders on the composite body. I decided to stitch the roof to the sides instead of the hood, but I suppose the average painter is more likely to wrap the livery onto the hood than the roof. I'll see what I can do about that.

 

[2guns]

I'll be streaming some mod development this coming Monday on my YouTube channel if anyone wants to drop by.

Look forward to watch!

 

[MrDude68]

Love what I'm seeing so far

 

[spidertre]

If anything Ceej, you are the one who got me to get NR2003 back in 2014/2015 after watching your ARLA Elite series(Now the FARC Lowe Dollar Series)

same except swap out 2014/15 with 2009/10!

everything's looking awesome so far. definitely following

 

[Ceej]

I ended up canceling the stream due to a problem I was having with one of the models, only to solve the problem not even 20 minutes afterwards.

I've been mostly working on UV mapping anyway, so I'll try to figure out when I'll be doing more substantial work and reschedule a stream around that.

Here's what I have so far. I haven't yet applied the mirror modifier I've been working with the whole time, and UV placement/sizing is very much unfinished.

 

[Lastlap]

I like the lack of rear quarter side window.

Is that to allow template makers to put whatever shape/style/trim there like the Cup90 mod?

 

[SprintRacer92]

This is awesome. Even past ARCA, the having a mod that has both gen4 & gen6 would open up for some interesting carset ideas...

 

[Ceej]

I like the lack of rear quarter side window.

Is that to allow template makers to put whatever shape/style/trim there like the Cup90 mod?

Yes, that's the idea.

 

[Highbank]

This is an amazing thread, thank you for allowing us a peek into your project...I find it Fascinating!

 

[Ceej]

I've started on a roll cage. Blender has a built-in modifier that generates tubes and bars with your geometry, but it generated a ton of unnecessary vertices when I applied it, so that took a lot of time to clean up.



Here it is nested inside the steel speedway body.