Car converting tutorial

[Revan31]

How to convert cars from GTA VC/SA to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven

DO NOT FORGET TO SAVE YOUR PROGRESS AFTER EVERY STEP!!!
Part I : The basics

1. Find yourself a good car, that you want to convert. I will convert this car again as an example:



2. Download the car

3. Before you import the car into the Zmodeler 1.07b, I recommend you to get a program called TXDWorkshop and extract all the textures
3.1



3.2



3.3



4 .Open Zmodeler:

5. Click to "File/Import" or just press Ctrl+I, a box should appear, browse to the directory where you unpacked the car and press "Open":



6. If you did all the steps above correctly, then you should have ended up with something like this:



Part II : The easy things.

7. The first thing you want to do is to get rid of all that isn't necessary on the model. Do it like this:



8. The wheels, resizing and rotating
8.1 There is also a easier way to rotate the wheels, its called mirroring
Use functions "Scale", "Rotate" or "Mirror".

Part III : The names and the steering wheel.

9. To get the model working correct in Mafia, some objects needs specific names:



9. Now you need a working steering wheel. Do it like this:

9.1



9.2



9.3



9.4



9.5



9.6



9.7



Part IV : The dummies.
10.



Part V : The hierarchy.



Part VI : The last fixes.

Your car is allmost ready to go into the streets of Lost Heaven, but first you should look at one minor thing.

11.



12.



13. Now export your model using "Export" function, copy your model "yourname.4ds" to the Mafia\models and all the textures your model is using to Mafia\maps folder.
After this you are ready to give it a try.

Note: if your new converted car is disappearing only a few meters out of the player, then you have to set LOD Ratio from 4000 to 0 for all the meshes you don't want to disappear like that.



Orginal authors : -HeKn-, MafiaMan9MM
Editing, updates and some corrections : Revan31

Last edited by Revan31 on Mon Apr 05, 2021 3:52 pm; edited 4 times in total

[Bumper]

Thanks for the tutorial!

I think I now have a chance of getting my cars ingame.

btw. Does transparency really work like this? When I open up some original models, they have 2ft19.TGA applied, which of course has an alpha channel in it and gives the transparency. Or does the game automatically use the 2ft19+.bmp as an alpha channel if I use the .bmp?

[Revan31]

For making windows to be transparent set Material type to "Glowing" and Shine bar set to the center. You can use whatever image you want for windows. For example I'm using black picture and with Shine bar I'm setting up windows to be darker or brighter.

[Bumper]

Okay!

How about reflective materials such as chrome or paint? Can I just apply a reflection map of my choice or is this handled some other way?

Sorry for asking about everything.

[Revan31]

No problem Its in Czech language but I guess you don't need that to be translated.

[Bumper]

Okay, I just did my first-ever Mafia conversion! Yay for that, now I only have a few other cars to model.

Anyways, It's not all finished yet, so once again I've come for help:

-The car's interior, apart for the seats is not showing up. The weird thing is, they both share the same material so that's not the problem. Also, the interior (apart for the seats) is part of the main body, so the model is showing up as well. Is there a limit for different textures on a single mesh? I think my body shell is using 5 or 6 materials.
-The flipping front axle. Not only is it hard to get positioned, but the game also seems to scale it, so its wider than in ZModeler? What?
-I can't get the lights (billboards) top show up, even if they're directly ripped from the original Bolt Ace and the hierarchy should be the same too. The "projector" works, so the road is lit up.

The good news is that all the wheels rotate right, even the steering wheel.



Also, anyone care to share a good reflection map? I think the one I'm using is a bit too "aggressive".

[PITEK]

First, I want to write that your Model T looks sweet!
If you want to make the interior visible you should visit this thread:
http://mafia.gamona.de/forum/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=14369
For the rest of yours issues: right now it's hard to write what could be wrong. I'd have to take a look on your Ford in my Zmodeler or maybe just try to post some screenshots of your model from your Zmod here.

[Bumper]

Thank you PITEK!

My German is as bad as Google Translate's, so I might have missed the point there. But if it was a matter of copy>reorient, then it wouldn't have helped me anyways. I have a proper interior model there, it just didn't like to show up.
I detached it from the main body shell and it now shows up, apart for some random transparency issues every now and then... (Pictured below)

The axle I'm still confused with. I just noticed that original Bolt's axle is very narrow too, and the game sort of stretches it to fit between the wheels. The height issue seems to be the main problem now, I can't get it to move down neither by physically moving it or by fiddling with the axle.

As for the lights, another mystery to me. Like I said - directly ripped from Bolt Ace, but for some reason they rotate 90 degrees when I export the model, rendering them invisible in the game. I never touched the local axis on the billboards and I made sure they are exactly the same as in the Bolt model. Meh.

Some more pictures of my issues:

[Jorns]

When you have reoriented nodes, try convert the model to "3DS" file and then back to 4DS. THAT 100% helps

[MrBeker12]

i would like to make the models in the game with the reflection of the paint like the glowing of this cars:

merced500K_PROVOZ.4ds
speedster_PROVOZ.4ds
chema64_PROVOZ.4ds
fordt2_provoz.4ds
buik4_PROVOZ

[huckleberrypie]

'Swell tutorial you got there. I'm pretty much used to doing things in 3DS Max, so a definite tutorial for Max users such as myself may do, but I guess I can make do with this one for now.

[Bumper]

Hey Jorns, I'm not sure what you mean. All a .3DS export from Zmodeler seems to do is mess up the normals.

It's not like this is a secret project, so here's the car as it stands for you guys to download so you can try and see if it can be fixed:

*download removed, will be released soon*

Oh, and if you do end up fixing it, let me know how and please share the fixed files.


Again, thank you everyone for your help. I couldn't have got this far without it.

edit: Seems like I forgot the reflection map from the archive. Just use something named "refl.bmp", Zmodeler's default chrome should do.

Last edited by Bumper on Sun Jan 04, 2015 11:18 am; edited 1 time in total

[PITEK]

I've fixed Bumper's Ford Model T!
Headlights and rear lights are working properly. I've merged both billboards and dummies from original Bolt Ace.
The front axle is placed correctly now. I think that by accident I left it alone in car's model hierarchy in Zmod. I've also added a new reflection map.

[don_salierii]

@Revan31: Sorry for the off-top, but I want to point out that these screenshot pictures are not working and there's nothing you can get to know about this gta sa to mafia conversion. Could you please add these screenshot photos again? I would like to find out about these pictures how it converts correctly from a gta sa vehicle to a mafia. Please update these screenshots from yourself. I would be grateful in advance.

[Revan31]