Build a Car in Blender for Racer
Build_a_Car_4.html

## Step 18. Make Axle/brake calipers

We need axles/brake calipers, a driver or two, some instruments and a couple of items for the views.ini file. Let's start with the axles/brake calipers. Open tutcar.blend in Blender and move the body object from layer 1 to layer 20. Switch to right view and press Shift-S-key and center the cursor at 0,0,0. Select layer 1, add a mesh cylinder, vertices 4, radius 0.0250 m., depth 0.5000 m. ends not capped. Name it Ob:rear_axle_0. Switch to top view and move -X -0.2500 m. Switch to right view and add a cylinder, 12 vertices, radius 0.0500, depth 0.0500, cap ends. Switch to front view, select all vertices and move -X -0.0250 m. This will be the axle for the wheels on the left side of the car (wheel_0 and wheel_2 in the car.ini file). Ctrl-N-key to recalculate normals outside. Tab out of edit mode and press F-key, face mode. Select all faces, in "UV/Image Editor" select "brakedrum.tga". in left port press U-key, select "Reset". Scale the vertices in the right port down to a small square and move to lower left corner of texture image. Switch to right view and select the vertices in the center only. Press U-key and select "Project from view" and move/scale as shown in left image below. Switch to front view. Press F-key to exit face mode. Tab into edit mode, select all, Shift-D-key, rotate 180 degrees, press P-key to separate. Tab out of edit mode and RMB click the right object name this new object "Ob:rear_axle_1". Results shown in right image below. Move rear_axle_0 object to layer 5 and rear_axle_1 to layer 6.

Select layer 2 and switch to Ctrl-3-key, left view and add a mesh cube and S-key, Y-key scale to 0.3000. Switch to front view, S-key, X-key scale to 0.2000. Move +Y 0.1200. Name it "Ob:brake_0". Remember "Double Sided" off and Vertex colors. Move to layer 5 and join with rear_axle_0. On layer 5 select the caliper vertices only, press Shift-D-key, Enter, P-key, Tab-key. RMB on caliper selecting it only then M-key move to layer 6 and join with rear_axle_1. Move both "axles" to layer one, export and move back then save file. If the caliper location is wrong when checking in racer then select the caliper vertices only in right view and rotate to correct position.

These aren't fancy but illustrate the method used to make these parts. Better modeling and textures can make these very realistic looking.

## Step 19. Make Driver(s)

Now for a driver. We will use the driver that was originally made and posted on RSC by Stecki. I am providing the original .dof file and a .blend file of the drivers. The original driver .dof file is good if you are using Zmod or another 3D graphics program to make a car. There are two drivers on the stecki_driver.blend, the one I modified for my Cyclops (Tom Missingear) and the one I modified for my Formcar (Trebor Crashcog). Both drivers are shown below, Tom on the left, Trebor on the right. To use these with a car body.dof file you will have to use the "Append" feature in Blender. Both drivers are textured and the needed .tga image files are loaded into tutcar.blend when doing the Append operation.
Read the driver.txt file in the "driver" folder in your "Blender files" folder which you should have made in step 3! Copy the stecki_driver.blend file to your Blender 2.45 folder. This is the file you will Append the driver of your choice from. The sparcosuit.tga and helmet.tga from the driver folder s/b in your racer/data/cars/tutcar folder.
Let's put a driver in TutCar, I'm going to put both drivers in tutcar. Open tutcar.blend in Blender, The axles/brakes should be on layer 5 and 6, move the body object to layer 1.
Now to Append the drivers, one at a time. Click on the "File" menu in Blender, selecting Append or press Shift F1-key, LMB click "stecki_driver.blend", LMB click "Object", LMB click "crashcog", LMB click "Load Library" and Trebor Crashcog s/b on layer 13. Press Shift-F1-key, LMB click on"missingear", LMB click "Load Library" and Tom Missingear s/b on layer 12. I notice that there are two sparcosuit tga and two misc tga files in the UV/Image editor listing and we should remove sparcosuit.tga.001 and misc.tga.001. They are redundant and you would need those .tga.001 files in the racer/data/cars/tutcar folder. Sparcosuit is applied to Tom and Trebor so we will remove and replace them with sparcosuit.tga. Select in side view on layer 12 "missingear" object. Enter face mode, select all of tom's faces EXCEPT the helmet. An easy way to do this is to press F-key, RMB click a helmet face, LMB click the "Select" menu and click "Same UV" and all helmet faces are selected as shown in the left image below then press Tab-key, P-key to separate, Tab-key again to have both objects in object mode. Switch to face mode, select a face on the helmet and use "Same UV" to select all helmet faces. In " UV/Image Editor" the misc.tga.001 image appears, click on the big black X to erase it, the helmet faces turn pink, then select misc.tga from the list and the helmet looks like it did before. Exit face mode, select the missingear object. F-key and select a face on his body and use the "Select" menu and select "Same UV" and X off sparcosuit.tga.001 and selecting "sparcosuit.tga". Exit face mode. The "crashcog" object may need to have the "sparcosuit" removed/replaced, if not then save the file, open the file, save the file again, open it again and the two tga.001 files s/b gone from the UV/Image Editor list. Select Tom's helmet then select his body and press Ctrl-J-key to rejoin them, Remove doubles (40).
Select Tom Missingear on layer 12, switch to front view, Tab into edit mode, select all vertices and move -X -0.5000 m. Exit edit mode and select Trebor Crashcog on layer 13, Tab into edit mode, Select all vertices and move him 0.4000 Dx. Both drivers are shown in the right image below, layer 12 and 13 selected, Wireframe view.
I made a seat for these two hot rods and you can do the same using the same method the interior was made with. Select the two vertices at the rear bottom of the side windows only on the body on Layer 1, Shift-D-key, Z-key and move up 1.0000 m. Center the cursor between the two vertices with Shift-S-key and S-key, scale inward in front view to 0.9000. Extrude "Only Edges" down -Z -0.4000 m, switch to right view and Extrude "Only Edges" forward -Y -0.4000 m. Select all the seat vertices with Ctrl-L-key and press P-key to separate from body. Name this object "Ob:seat" and move to Layer 11. Select layer 11 then in edit mode move the seat -Z 1.0000 m, Zoom in and move the seat -Y -0.0300 m. Give the seat some thickness by extruding "Only Edges" the bottom four vertices -Z -0.0300 m. Select "Textured" view, switch to face mode and texture the seat using misc.tga, scale down to the "leather" square. You can give the back of the seat thickness. Now we have to adjust the seat. Select the top two seat vertices, Shift-S-key to center the cursor between them, Ctrl-L-key to select all seat vertices R-key, rotate the seat 15 degrees. Select the four seat corner vertices only and center the cursor on them with Shift-S-key, select the bottom eight vertices and rotate -10 degrees. Tab out of edit mode. Select Layers 11, 12 and 13 to see that the drivers and the seat. The drivers are a little small and need to be scaled up and moved to the seat. Select Tom Missingear and in edit mode center the cursor on the vertices at his butt, select all vertices scale him up to 1.3000, rotate 5.0 degrees then move him in Y and Z directions only to the seat. Again select the butt vertices and center the cursor on them. Press Ctrl-L-key to select his body vertices only and rotate -5 degrees. Select the bottom body front three vertices and rotate 5 degrees. Tab out of edit mode. Deselect layer 12. Select Trebor Crashcog and center the cursor on his butt vertices, select all vertices then scale him up to 1.2000. Move him as you did Tom to the seat, center the cursor on his butt vertices and select all body and helmet vertices, use B-key to select all helmet vertices. Rotate -5 degrees, select the bottom front three vertices only and rotate 5 degrees. The seat with both drivers is shown in the two images below, front and side views. Layers 11, 12, and 13 are activated. You can move a drivers hands/arms into a different position by selecting them in edit mode, placing the cursor in a pivot point (shoulder, elbow and/or wrist) and rotating to the desired position. You can make the seat back, also. I'll leave that up to you.
Now comes the tricky part, puting the drivers and seat in to the car body. Both drivers and the seat need to be joined together and moved into a position that puts the drivers hands on the steering wheel then joined to the body. This can be a trial and error operation (not good) or you can (this way good) first duplicate the wheel on Layer 4 only, you only need the outside of the steeringwheel, separate it from the steering wheel making it a separate object, move the duplicate str.001 to Layer 7, move/rotate it to the desired position relative to the car body writing down the angles rotated and the distance x, y, and z moved. These will be the angle and x, y, z values for the steering wheel in your car.ini file. I'll do it and give you the step by step values and see if you can do it on your own. All moves/rotations are done in edit mode on layer 7. Tab out of edit mode and center the cursor on 0,0,0.
The values to place the steering wheel about 10" from the dash are: 90 deg. in right view, -Y -0.3500 m. in right view, Z +0.2000 m. in right view, X +0.3600 m. in top view, center cursor with Shift-S-key, rotate -5 deg in right view.
Select Layers 11, 12, and 13 only. Select Tom and in object mode then select the seat, Ctrl J-key to join, select Trebor only then select the seat, Ctrl J-key to join and the object should now be seat on Layer 11. Tab out of edit mode. Select Layers 11 and 7, Looks like the seat with drivers needs to be moved as shown in left image below. Select the seat object. Tab into edit mode select all seat vertices and move in top view Y 0.2500 m. Center the cursor on trebors elbows and after selcting the vertices down to the hands move the vertices to place them neatly round the steering wheel. Result s/b as right image below. Center cursor on 0,0,0.
With the seat still selected activate Layers 1 and 11 only, Shift right click the body object, Ctrl J-key to join, activate Layer 11 only and the seat object is gone, it's in the body. Export the body object, save the file, quit Blender and drag and drop the body.dof file from C:/_DOF to your racer/data/cars/tutcar folder and run racer to see what it looks like. Don't forget to change the steering wheel values in car.ini to x=0.3600, y=0.2000, z=0.3500 and xa=5 deg. Note that the y and z values are swapped in car.ini and that the z value changes polarity.

## Step 20. Finish Bodyshdo

Now to finish up. We have to fix the bodyshdo so that it has all the stuff we added. You should be on layer 1, right view, with the body object selected. Tab into edit mode select all vertices with A-key and Shift-D-key the body object, Enter-key, P-key to separate it, tab out of edit mode. RMB to select the body object and move it to Layer 20. RMB to select the body.001 object, tab into edit mode and select just one vertex on the drivers, press Ctrl-L-key to select the rest of the driver/seat vertices, repeat until they are all selected, X-key Erase: Vertices. Select an interior vertex, Ctrl-L-key to select all the interior vertices, G-key to move the vertices little to make sure you have just the interior vertices then RMB to exit move and X-key Erase: Vertices. Tab out of edit mode and select Layer 10 only. Select the bodyshdo object, Tab into edit mode and select a vertex on the body, Ctrl-L-key, X-key Erase: Vertices. You should have only the wheels left. Tab out of edit mode, Select Layer 1 and 10, select the body.001 object first then Shift-key RMB click the wheels and then press Ctrl-J-key to join. Move bodyshdo object to layer 1 and export it. Move the bodyshdo object back to Layer 10. Save the file, quit Blender and drag and drop the body.dof file from C:/_DOF to your racer/data/cars/tutcar folder and run racer to see what the new shadow looks like.

## Step 21. Dash Instruments

These are the .tga images we need for the views.ini file and some dashboard instruments: dash.tga, name.tga, rpm_needle.tga, speedo.tga, and tach.tga. I've made these images and I'll tell you how to do the dash. There are tutorials available for gauges and people that will make them for you.
The dash. Open tutcar.blend In Blender select layer 20. Select the body object, Tab into edit mode and select the four corner vertices of the dash. Shift-D-key and move it up Z 1.0000 m. Switch to back view, press the Print Screen-key on your keyboard and paste the clipboard image into Paint Shop Pro (PSP) with Ctrl-V-key or use GIMP. Crop the image to just inside the pink lines. Resize to 512 x 67. Now you have to put some instruments or whatever you want on it. I'll leave that up to you. Change the canvas size to 512 x 128. The background s/b all the same color so make it so. Save the image as dash.tga. I have already done this and put it into the "texture_files" folder. So go back to tutcar.blend and in back view use dash.tga in UV/Image Editor mode to face the dash. It should look like the image below. Exit face mode and tab into edit mode, switch to side view, select the vertices in the dash only and move down -Z -1.0000 m. Select all vertices and remove doubles (4), Tab out of edit mode. Move to Layer 1, export the body object, move it back to Layer 20. Save the file, quit Blender and drag and drop the body.dof file from C:/_DOF to your racer/data/cars/tutcar folder and run racer to see what it looks like.
Now the name.tga file which is made in PSP/GIMP. Make a new image 256 x 160 pixels, and using the Preset Shapes tool, draw a rounded rectangle, line width 3, Antialias on, gray forground, black background, from 0,0 to 255,160. Use the text tool to put "TutCar" centered at 128 x 45 (at the top) in white as vector with antialias and B on, size 36. Put "TIME" left justified at 10 x 70, size 16. Put "BEST LAP" left justified at 10 x 120 size 16. Make a new Mask on Layer 1, from image, this window, Source opacity and save to alpha0 channel. Save the image as name.tga in your tutcar folder. The image is shown above in the right image. This image is used/positioned in the views.ini file section elt4 with the positon of the times (time and laptime) set in section elt5 and elt6. This image, the tach and speedo images can be made to not appear when using the inside view (camera 9) key-0 in the car.ini file. Change model=1 to model=0 in the car.ini file to see them from inside. I've already done the name.tga and it is in your "Texture_files" folder
Last Image needle.tga. Start Blender, center the cursor at 0,0,0 in top view, erase all objects and add a circle 36 vertices, double sided off. Scale down to 0.2000, extrude, scale to 0.0000, remove boubles (35). Select the top four vertices only, extrude to Y 2.0000 m. S-key, X-key, scale to 0.5000. Select the bottom six vertices only, extrude to Y -0.4000 m, S-key, X-key, scale to 1.3000. Select the center vertices only, flip normals, Tab out of edit mode and select Draw Type: Solid. Press the A-key to eliminate the pink edges. The result should look like the left image below with the cursor completely in the black center. Press Print Screen key to copy to your clipboard, save the file as needle.blend and quit Blender. Paste the clip board image into PSP. Clip to a square image slightly biger than the needle. I used 394 x 394. Make the center all black erasing the cursor, Promote to Layer, Use the Magic Wand to delete all but the needle. Select the pointer and its tail and paint them red. Select the center black circle with the Magic Wand and use Effects, Illumination, Sunburst with settings: Rays both = 0, Light spot = 100, 50, 50, Circle = 50. Save the image as needle.psp. Add a raster layer and put it under the needle, paint it all black, make it not visible. Resize image to 128 x 128, select Layer1 then Masks, New, From Image, This Window, Source opacity. Save mask to alpha0 channel. Save copy as needle.tga and put it in your tutcar folder. The result is shown in the right image below and is used in the views.ini file for all the gauges. In the outside view (view0) the size is the same as the image, 128 x 128 but in the inside view (view1) the size setings are different. Lets see what the needle looks like in RACER.
I left the tach values for the inside view (view1) big and it needs to be adjusted to the correct position by you to learn how to do it. The right way to get the values is to measure (record) the distance from 0,0,0 to the center (pivot) point of your gauge. The correct values are in the copy of views.ini file in your "tutcar" folder.
Now Go Build a Car