[3ds Max] San Andreas reflections

[_F_]

Background:
Well this topic is mainly for my friend @Verlotsky to whom I'm trying to teach some tips for fixing his fixed vehicle mods. And since he works with Zmodler which I know nothing about and I work with 3ds Max which is super easy, I first have to show how to make San Andreas reflections. Since many people don't know how to make San Andreas reflections in 3ds Max, I thought why not make a topic here in public instead of just PMing. This way other people may also find it useful. Any questions: feel free to post.

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Tools:
Kam's Max Scripts
DFF Exporter (3ds Max plugin)
GTA .dff Importer
Anos' Script

They all have ReadMe files about how to install them, so hopefully you won't have any problems with that.

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Getting started:
Hmm so I don't know where to begin... Let's start from the very basics then I guess...

1) Open Material editor with M. You should see lots of grey balls.
2) Now click on one of them. After that click on the "Standard" button which should open a new window. From that window choose "GTA Material"

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San Andreas style reflection line on the body:
1) On the bottom of the GTA Materials you should see 2 buttons. Firstly double click on the "Other default" (1) then after that double click on the "SA Vehicle default"(2). Now choose your preferred color (3) for the material (choose white if you don't want it to be colorable in game). Now you have to choose the texture you want for your model. (4)
Now the most important part: Make sure all the settings are the same as on the following picture:

Ambient 0.5 (Max 0 min 1.0 - the higher the amount the brighter the object will be in-game), Specular 1.0, Diffuse 1.0, Reflection 100, Glossiness 30.0, Spec alpha 255, Spec ref/blend 0.05

Now apply the texture to your vehicle.

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No reflection:
This is mostly used for the interior of the car and other parts that should have no reflection.

Like before but now, don't click on "SA Vehicle default", if you already did, then just press "Other default"

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Chrome reflection:
Do exactly as you did in the "San Andreas style reflection line on the body" part, but now don't choose color (If you want your chrome to be colorable you can of course).
Pay attention now, some important changes in the settings:
1) By default it gave the "Reflection section" xvehicleenv12 texture, but you have to change it manually to vehicleenvmap128 by clicking on it and locating the texture file on your computer. (It can also be your custom texture with other name)
2) Also set "Ambient" value to 0.2 and Spec/Refl blend to 0.08

Apply to your model.

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Getting ready to export:
1) Close material editor if you already haven't. Choose everything on your scene. (Ctrl + A)
2) From the top of your 3ds Max click "MAXScript" > "Run Script..." > and find "GTAnos"
3) Now scroll down until you see the same buttons as on the above image:
First click on the "Auto 2UvwMap"'s "Applica alla selezione" (I think this creates the 2nd UVW map for the line)
Now click on button above it "Riflessi sul secondo Canale UVW".

NOTE: It is very important that you do it in this exact order. From my experience it doesn't work if done the other way around.
4)You may now close Anos script.

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Exporting:
NOTE: For some reason it is not possible to export 2nd UVW channel with Kam's script and for this reason we need that exporter plugin by seggaeman.

1) Select all of your scene again (Ctrl + A). For some reason Anos script deselects dummies.
2)On the very top left corner, click on the Autodesk logo and and choose export. Choose your file name and select "Grand Theft Auto DFF" from the "Save file as" drop down menu.
3) This should open a new window. Make sure all your settings are exactly as on the picture below:

4) Now that your settings are correct click on "Append collision" and choose the .col file you made for your car earlier. After that you are ready to export.

Any questions - fee free to ask.

Edited July 11, 2015 by _F_

[_F_]

Okay, so I'll now show how to make custom collison file.

Of course there are many ways to do it, I'll show you the way I do it.

 

1) Have your car opened on the scene. I suggest hide damage parts and _vlo model.

2) Find an original San Andreas car it resembles most.

3) Open Kam's "Collison IO" script.

4) Thick "Skip bounding" and then "Open Collison File". File type .dff and open the original San Andreas car you chose.

5) A lots of beige balls and grey car silhouette should appear. Now press H on your keyboard which should open the hierarchy of the scene. Select everything except your car and "name_CM"

 

 

6) Click "Ok" and then right click anywhere on your scene. Choose "Hide selection"

7) Now there should be some sort of primitive shape of the vehicle. Using "Editable Mesh" tool try to make it as similar as possible to your car.

 

 

Don't worry if it doesn't fit 100%. Also the bottom part should be a little higher that the actual bottom of the car. (It might avoid some future bugs, but I'm not 100% sure either)

8) Now open Material Editor (M button on your keyboard). Choose the "eyedropper" tool (1) and click on that beige mesh (2).

Two "GTA COL Surface" sections should show up (3). Click on of them. And check that the settings are like this (4). If they are not, then change the values, so that they would be like that. Now go back to the "multimaterial" (5) and open the other section and make sure the settings are like that (6). These are the settings for the windshield. If they are not like that, the windshield will not be breakable in game.

 

 

If they were already correct then just close the material editor. (Sometimes the settings are wrong (Rockstar's bug)

9) Now right click on your scene and choose "Unhide all". Open hierarchy (H) and choose "name_SM". Hide it.

10) Now it is time to start making the balls fit the shape of your car. Using "move" and "scale" tools make them fit your car. If you need more of them for your car, just right click one of them and make a copy. (NOTE: "Copy" not "Instance")

 

 

NOTE: Make sure your balls are not over the bottom part of the "name_CM" mesh (we did that earlier, remember?)

11) Alright. Now the shadow. Again unhide all, this time in hierarchy (H) choose everything except your car and "name_SM". Hide them. You should only have the grey car shadow mesh now.

12) Using "Editable mesh" try to make it as similar to your car as possible.

13) Now there is two ways to go by: The San Andreas way or my way:

 

San Andreas way:

The shadow stays on that exact position, but then you should make sure that the dark parts are not visible from under the car mesh. Else it will give dark spots in game.

Well those dark spots will be visible at certain angles in game nevertheless.

 

My way:

As I don't like these dark lines at all, I flipped the shadow 180 degrees. There will still be shadow in game, but it will not look like on the original cars. The plus side is that will be no dark lines at all.

(Select all verticles, choose the "Rotating tool" and flip in 180 degrees, move it right below the car. Part of the shadow and part of the car bottom should even touch)

 

 

 

In this case, it is totally up to you: Use whichever way you like better.

14) Exporting the col file: Unhide everything again. Now from the hierarchy choose your car and hide it. So that only the beige balls, shadow and the flat "name_CM" thing are shown.

15) Open Kam's Collision IO again. Click "Collision Mesh" (2) and then click on the "name_CM" (3). Now click on the "Shadow Mesh" (4) and choose your shadow (5). Check that they are like that. (6) Write whatever name you feel like, it doesn't matter what so ever.

 

 

16) Select everything (ctrl + A). Click export and give it whatever name you want.

[_F_]

Wheels are sinking in SAMP? Tuning wheels are too small?

 

 

Here I'm going to show you a way to fix that. It involves some basic math and calculations so, have your calculator close by

 

1) Unlink all wheel dummies and wheels from your model.

2) Open one of San Andreas original tuning wheels. (I used wheel_gn1.dff)

3) Select the original tuning wheel. Press ALT+A on your keyboard, and select your car's wheel. A dialog should open, don't change anything there. Just click okay.

 

 

4) This should put the original tuning wheel to the exact same position as yours. You can see that it is much bigger than it should be.

5) Now open the original vehicles.ide file (...Rockstar Games/GTA San Andreas/data/vehicles.ide)

6) Find the car you want to replace and remember the wheel size parameters it has. Don't change anything. (You can close it now)

 

 

7) Now go back to 3ds Max. Click on the tuning wheel, and apply those parameters to it's scale (0.7 means 70%)

 

 

8) Now take your wheel, and scale it to the exact size as the tuning wheel. (I scaled it down to 75)

6) Write down the values of X;Y;Z depending how much you scaled them. Now reset its scale and transform.

 

 

6) Delete the original wheel.

7) Now as you wrote down the numbers before:

X: 75.799

Y: 75.799

Z: 75.799

Take your calculator and calculate:

X: 10000/75.799 = 131.93

Y: 10000/75.799 = 131.93

Z: 10000/75.799 = 131.93

8) Now click on wheel_rf_dummy, right click and clone. Give it some unique name that the game doesn't use. (for example "scale_rf_dummy)

 

 

9) Take the dummy and scale it to this exact size X 131,93, Y 131,93 Y 131,93 (DO NOT RESET THE SCALE AND TRANSFORM)

 

 

10) Now click on the wheel_rf_dummy and write down it's coordinates. Mine:

X: 0.861

Y: 1.641

Z: -0.133

 

Now take the scale_rf_dummy's scale value. Mine:

X: 131.93

Y: 131.93

Z: 131.93

 

Now you need to take out your calculator and calculate the position for scale_rf_dummy.

For that:

X: (100-131.93)*0.861/100 = -0.275

Y: (131.93-100)/1.641/100 = 0.195

Z: (131.93-100)/2/100 = 0.160

11) Now you got the first scale dummy correct. Now right click on that dummy and clone it 3 more times (scale_rb_dummy, scale_lf_dummy and scale_lb_dummy)

12) Repeat the same procedure for each of the dummies until you got correct positions for each of them. Alternatively, if all of your wheels are parallel, you can just change the minus into plus and vice versa. So:

scale_lf_dummy

X: change -0.275 into +0.275

Y: don't change

Z: don't change

 

scale_rb_dummy

X: don't change

Y: calculate as before

Z: don't change

 

scale_lb_dummy

X: change - to plus

Y: don't change

Z: don't change

 

13) Select all scale dummies and link them to vehicle's root dummy (bobcat)

 

 

14) Now link all dummies to their respective scale dummies and lastly wheel to wheel_rf_dummy

 

 

15) That's it. Ready to export.

Now you are probably wondering, why do you need 4 scale dummies, if one dummy could do the same work? Wrong. Because this way the tire skid mark will be messed up

 

 

 

 

 

Exporting with Kam's script.

If you are exporting with updated Seggaeman's script do as in the first post.

 

1) Unhide everything on your scene.

2) Click on one random dummy. Right click > select similar > hide selection

3) Open Anos script and do everything exactly the same way as written on the first post under "Getting ready to export"

4) Ctrl + A. Select everything. Open modifiers > Unwrap UVW (1)

5) Set map channel to 2. (2) Click "Reset UVWs".(3) Right click on "Unwrap UVW" and rename it to "2nd UV Map" (4)

 

 

6) Now change map channel back to 1, but this time, DON'T click on "Reset UVW", you should notice that the textures mapping changes to really weird. Don't mind it, in game it is normal.

7) Right click on your scene > Unhide all

8) Ctr + A (Select all)

9) Open Kam's Maxscript. Click "Select COL3/COLL". Click "Export DFF"

Edited August 25, 2017 by _F_

[JC2837]

can someone please do a tutorial video. cause the paint job doesn't work. I added the Euros car a paint job but when I apply the paint job,it's just a plain white paint job. please help me

[lpgunit]

Thank you so much for the tips dude. I'm sure this would be of great help in case I decide to convert some stuff to SA.

 

Also, on the part where you linked the wheels to the "birdie" dummy, will it affect hydraulics on lowriders or should it behave in much the same way was with vanilla vehicles?

[_F_]

I think it doesn't affect them in any different way, not 100% sure though.

[MrGTAmodsgerman]

OMG why i see this too late?!

Edited August 4, 2015 by MrGTAmodsgerman

[_F_]

I'm glad you like it

[spaceshape]

Holy fukin sh*t!

You are still using Windows XP!

BTW, nice tut m8 its gr8.

Edited June 12, 2017 by spaceshape

[hagridas]

Hello, When I import a car into 3ds max and then export it looks like it doesnt have any reflections. Like for example all cars with color id 0 look grayish-black, and my mod look literally pitch black. I tried following your guide but it just gives me model would load in time error. Here is my thread, all the information is there - http://gtaforums.com/topic/894182-help-gtasa-car-reflections-in-3ds-max/

[Cap'n_Cook]

Try to export with the script of gtanos but it gives me this error. I don't know why it's...

By the way, I've followed all your steps

 

Spoiler

 

[_F_]

Yeah, the script is very outdated and you have the newest 3ds Max. But don´t mind it. So you have to do it manually.

Just click accept, scroll down until you see the Alignment section. There choose X (so the plane takes the car from the side)

After that change the UVW Channel to 2 and open Unwrap UVW from the drop down list

 

So this should open up.

Now what you need to do is change the map channel from 1 to 2, click Reset UVWs, and change the map channel back to 1 (you should visually see the mapping change).

After that click Edit...

You see the mapping is a mess.

From the drop down menu, choose the xvehiceenv128 texture and manually adjust the car to fit the texture:

 

Now it is very important that you change the channel back to 2 (but no reset this time!) At this point the car should take back its original mapping. Now collapse the modifiers. And export.

Edited August 26, 2019 by _F_

[FrannDzs]

Hello, brother. What's up? I really appreciate your work, and I would like to create a remastering of the original cars of GTA SA with reflections like those of the mobile version, and some fixes, there are some mods on this but they are incomplete, so I want to start with this. I need the images of your tutorial, to guide me a little, because I tried to do something but without using the years script, I use kams script updated to the latest version. We could update the tutorial. Could you help me a little? Regards! @_F_

[_F_]

It doesn´t work with kam´s script.

[Leinad]

@_F_ fix this post please, images aren't available anymore.

[Cap'n_Cook]

@_F_ your images no longer exist, please replace them with new ones

 

[Mr_White97]

@_F_ Do you have a tutorial to adapt the paint jobs? In 3ds Max Not in zmodeler

[[email protected]_]

@_F_

Hello! The tutorial worked perfect for me!

I ask you how I can do to calculate the position of a "DUMMY" from the ELM function of IMVEHFT by placing it as a "sub-hierarchy" of an element with the function MU = Float (Rotating pieces of VehFuncs). I tried many times but in the game the position is completely lost.

I would like to achieve the NYPD light bar.

Edited October 15, 2020 by [email protected]_

[someone_idk]

hi! can you please reload images, thank you