I just remember seeing in some of my reference pictures that were straight out of the movie the side back wheel covers were missing. So I thought I'll just make that part come optional so everyone will be happy. The same feature that allows convertible cars to come with the roof up or down in the game is used to make that back wheel cover piece optional.

I'm having some real trouble with the back windows. When you look in to the back windows the textures on the inside of the car don't show, and sometimes the interior disappears when looking in. I know that sounds strange but anyone who has experience with GTA modding probably knows what I mean. I've seen other mods with this problem. I can not release a copy for download till I fix this problem so be patient everyone. Looks like crap when you drive the car and through the back windows the interior is disappearing at times.

But I have some ideas on how to fix this. I'm thinking it's from the extreme amount of polygons making up the main part of the car. So I'm going to breakup the car's main body into 4 sub levels, exterior, interior, grill, and underbody/engine. Then assign these parts on the hierarchy bar to the main chassis. I seen it done before on car mods as big as mine so I think it'll work. I think the game poops out when one object on a model is extremely big so this technique will lessen the load.

It's tough, I'm trying to make the roof rack and get the car working properly in the game at the same time these days. I'm working at the computer 24/7.

hi bigmac!
please get the car fixed first and then work on the roof rack with the same power as for the car!
after waiting so long for the car (i think i speak for all the fans here) i dont realy want to see here an exelent car with a bad roofrack!
no offence, but in ur last post, its sounds like u want to finish it in a hurry!
so take the time it needs to be perfect!

ah, and before i forget:
please, when u make the code 3 lightbars; please make them semi-transparent!
im such a fan from those lightbars!
2 thumbs up!
(i wish i have more than 2)

No, I manage my time better than that. I work on the roof rack during the same hours of the day that I always work on the car. I'm fully awake and ready to work while I'm working on the roof rack. I usually work till dinner, then after dinner I usually don't work on any 3D model stuff for the rest of the day.

But now after dinner I work on the beta version. So it doesn't interfere with the roof rack's quality at all.

As for rushing, yes. I'm on spring break for this week and this week only. So it's my one chance to get lots of work done on this project. That's the main reason this project has taken so long in the first place.

And yes, I plan to make the light bars transparent. I don't recall ever seeing a GTA mod with transparent light bars before so this could be a first.

there were some on gtainside!

o.k. hope it works out great!

Hell yeah, I finally have the whole thing working. It was a tough setup on the hierarchy bar but I figured it out. It's like a BigMac mega mod extreme setup.

Basically the windows on the doors are considered the main part of the door. While the rest of the door is controlled by the movement of the windows, which the windows are controlled by the door's dummy. Same with the chassis. The rear windows are considered the main chassis now. While the actual chassis is controlled by the the rear windows and the rear windows are controlled by the chassis dummy.

I was starting to feel like it was hopeless. Then I thought of this ides of switching the windows as the main parts of the car and amazingly, it worked! Now parts of the car don't disappear when you look into the car's windows.

Only bugs are the windshield is not seen through the back windows. And looking in from the passenger's side rear windows the rear windows on the driver's side are not seen. But it's barely noticeable, especially compared to the problems I was having earlier.

I swear the two tone windows are causing the game trouble and not just the amount of polygons.

are the windows made of one piece coloured in 2 tones?
if so, i would do it as 2 pieces, if thats causing the trouble! one tone - one piece of glaas!

Yeah, the glass tones are set as one object. But splitting it would only cause more trouble on the hierarchy bar.

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Well the damage effects are not working. When I put in the damage effect the hood becomes the trim color along with the side wheel covers and the trim color becomes white. I tried dozens of different setups but it just doesn't work. But I'll keep trying.

Here is what the car looks like with just the non-damage effects and everything working as it should.



And here is the car with a black body and trim. I think it looks awesome in black.


It's really going to take seeing this car first hand in the game to appreciate its real beauty. There is so much detail the pictures can't show it all, you really need to see it in the game to get a feel for what this model is really like.

You could mod that last one into the Clawmobile from Inspector Gadget 2. All you'd need to add are some red curtains, the MAD insignia, and a license plate reading “CRYMPAYS”.

And, of course, Claw sitting in the back, his face obscured by his big hat.

i thought this is i thread for an ecto1, but o.k.!

i still have a bad feeling about the chrome, but i think i have to see it ingame first!
looking good in black!

and for the damage efects, i personaly dont care if there is nothing like that! thats such a good looking car u have there…………..
but we all want to have it acurate, so go on and try it!
maybe someone could help if there are pictures of ur problem!

I too don't care much about the damage effects. But since I'm making this for GTA and a GTA car without damage effects will most likely not get a good review from most GTA players, I feel that I must include some damage effects.

The chrome just looks bad in the pictures but when you see the car in action while playing the game it doesn't really seem bad at all. Chrome is hard to make realistic looking since the shading on complex shapes is hard to make perfect and the chrome is based on the shading.

Well my break is over now and I'm back to the crappy schedule of working only 3 times a week (if I'm lucky) on the project. What I want to do is finished the roof rack's frame and then figure out how to get everything working in the game properly with the beta version. Once that is done I can take a backup copy of my model before I united a bunch of parts that now seem to not work and merge the roof rack's frame into that backup. Then I'll have one file with the model correctly setup inside and I can continue to build the roof rack in that file.