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ah. I don't script but I'm aware that texture shaders will work. you'll likely still have to make adjustments to the model for it to work in regards to the UV. shaders would add a dark lights texture when off and an illuminated texture when on, just like in vanilla vehicle lights. these shaders can be controlled with a script for the lights to animate through a cycle. of which I have no idea how to create. you can use a simple lights flashing script for simple lights, but as soon as you want to control each of the light's state separate from headlights, you'll have plenty scripting to do. hope this helps. I like to fiddle with lights myself. have fun!

I believe this is the right section, https://forum.multitheftauto.com/forum/177-modelling/ it may also be worth checking this FAQ @ElTacoBanido

Conversions like this does take a good bit of time to finish, and so I would maybe consider including a reward of sorts. Anyway, please shoot me a PM with some screenshots and description of what you're dealing with. I might be interested.

There are loads on the net. Try installing Blender 3D and try and get started there. You can also view the modeling section https://forum.multitheftauto.com/forum/177-modelling/ or try asking on #modelling on MTA discord. We have a lot of geeks in there available to give advice in the field.

This can be done with texture shaders quite easily, or modeling the paint using geometry that resembles the curvature of the road itself and texturing with alpha cutout. I think that a lot of mapping will go into it regardless of which approach you pick. @Unkovic

If you're having issues with models or are looking for help on how to achieve certain results, feel free to ask in here. Note: Please check the Guide section before asking questions in here. Frequently Asked Questions on GTA modding the FAQ is on 3DS Max, though can be applied for various app's Lighting and Shading #1 Why can't I change the smoothing of my model? Your model contains duplicate vertices - this is a typical issue within GTA importers. They tend to break the vertices/split the edges on import, requiring to be welded. View the spoiler for a potential fix. #2 My map model is overexposed in day and night time. Your model lacks vertex color and illumination respectively. The GTA engine uses vertex color information to define lighting which is baked into the model. View spoiler for a potential fix. #3 Why is my Infernus model so bright? GTA engine calculates brightness of vehicles based on map objects collision brightness (that it's standing on) and the vehicle surface properties. View the spoiler for a potential fix. #4 My striped Bullet has different brightness for primary and secondary colors. GTA engine uses different lighting techniques for vehicles than map objects. Some of which are specular lighting, which in short brings a fake highlight onto the vehicle surface, illuminating it. View spoiler for a potential fix. Modeling #5 Certain polygons are not visible ingame, but looks fine on 3D editor. GTA engine among most other game engines uses backface culling, which kills the faces that are not facing/are blocked by ones facing the camera. This procedure is done to save memory. View the spoiler for a potential fix. #6 Can I make scissor doors for my vehicle without requiring scripts? It is possible to modify how vehicle doors appear in their open phase. It involves changing the rotations of dummies and their children objects, the doors. View the spoiler for a potential method. #7 How does vehicle reflections and chrome work? GTA vehicles uses 2 UV channels; first for diffuse, second for env and chrome mapping. If the secondary UV channel is not unwrapped properly, the env/chrome will either not work or flashes too often. View the spoiler for a potential method. #8 I can see through my vehicle chassis when looking at the police decals, why is that? Materials that are responsible for alpha needs to be last in the multimaterial list. If this is not done, textures like police decals will not render parts of the vehicle behind the alpha. View the spoiler for a potential fix. #9 How do I make a vehicle paintable? GTA SA requires models to have a certain colorcoded material applied to the surface of vehicles that needs to be paintable. It also needs (optionally if using textures) a texture that is not black. As anything that isn't black will be. If parts of the texture is grey, the color ingame will look sort of dirty or old. View the spoiler for a method. Miscellaneous #10 I have imported des_sherrifsgn1.dff into 3ds and extracted the textures into a folder, but they aren't displayed. It is not enough to extract the images, you'll have to tell the program where your textures are stored for it to apply them on the model. View the spoiler for a potential solution. #11 I want to remove Wuzimu's glasses and export it to my game. How do I do this? You're going to need a GTA formats importer. I prefer Kam's vanilla tools for skins due to its decent support for bones and skinned models. View the spoiler for a potential method. #12 What file types are worth to know about? GTA has many, many file types, and a lot of them are not natively available in MTA unless you modify your server's anti-cheat system to allow locally custom data files etcetera. So if we're going with MTA friendly files, there are a few. View the spoiler. #13 Where do I find shared vehicle textures, and what's each their use? You can locate the .txd for shared textures in GTA SA dir\models\generic\vehicle.txd. It stores textures which are used for SA vehicle lights, lighting and many more textures, which are used across hundreds of vehicles. As these textures are found in your local files, none of them are required to be added to custom vehicle .txd files, making for potentially very low file sizes. View the spoiler for a full list. #14 I have downscaled my model, but in-game it remains the same size as before. If your model's scale values says something like 76,144, 76,144, 76,144, it will reset to 100, 100, 100 on export. To correct this, go to Utilities panel, click Reset xForm, Reset selected, then right click the modifier and collapse to. Now your model will have its new scale applied. #15 I have converted a Counterstrike map and turned the main mesh into a collision which is 250kb. I am getting invisible walls, why is that? GTA has a very low polycount limit in regards to collision models. Not to be confused with collision primitive models, which are spheres or boxes, but the CM itself. If it is above or around 5000 (needs additional sources...) polygons, issues will occur, such as invisible walls or as if there's a large box blocking the entire model off. Another culprit for collision issues is the pivot point and position that the collision is exported at. You need to set the collisions to 0, 0, 0 and pivot point needs to resemble that of the main model, otherwise they will not line up properly. #16 My character movement is bugging on custom modeled stairs. GTA III, VC and SA do not have support for advanced staircase collisions, and so they require a different approach, which is a planar ramp or slope if you will. This may not look very good when the character steps on the stairs, however it is the most performance and bug-less method around. **Please feel free to contribute to the FAQ by leaving a comment here or through PM. It will be greatly appreciated.** little note for colors #B8E0B6 #4A4A4A

i have downloaded the map and seen that the collision file contains 2 models, however MTA can only load 1 of them. not sure if you've done it already, but here you have both of the collision models. if this doesn't solve the problem, please hit me up on Discord Corder RS #3423 and i'll try to help fixing the issue @KeksKing https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/308955200876707840/568230050311438375/collisions.rar

Pop-up headlamps are hardcoded for only certain car(s). from my understanding you can't edit this outside SAMP/SP. you'll have to supply a script for animating the light component for other vehicle IDs. @sevenlwo

did you ever work with the script to import different models? if so, did that work fine? if you'd like i can have a look at the files @swag_k_dog

Really depends on how you want them to differ from eachother. have you looked into vehicle variants yet? @mucuk6547 to keep it simple: Admiral can have a civilian version and a police version. All police components would be the variant. the variant spawner will determine if the vehicle spawns plain or with variant 1-5.

@Mumboko the skin isn't made properly, you're better off finding another mod if you don't have experience with character skinning. The issue is that the bones aren't attached properly, causing shown glitches

I'm fairly sure it's possible scripting wise by getting the faces on the model but that would require loads of research on MTA coding, so my best recommendation is find a IVF modpack or so that already has the stuff ready

Indeed but to be more specific, @TadMad you could try applying 2 new 4x4 bitmaps to replace your indicator lights in any 3d software. (bitmap res doesn't matter, i just favor low .txd size) In a test we did shade the Blinker bitmaps with a yellow color but you should get the point ?

excellent update. Thank you all so much for making this possible

might want to ask on Gtaforums in the GTA modding section too. I usually consult people there for any trouble i have.

I have many times experienced that mods installed through a gta3.img installer such as Imgtool does not import mods correctly, so your issue may just be one of those. Try using another installer or a modloader for your local server and it should work. I have quit installing mods for my local gta3.img, loading through a modloader is 101 times faster and more convenient.

Use either Zmodeler, Autodesk 3ds Max or Blender 3d for modeling. I strongly suggest Blender > >Zmodeler > 3ds Max if you aren't student as 3ds is extremely expensive. Blender 3d is quite easy to get started with and you're able to learn the essentials of designing models with it. Zmodeler should be an okay program too, way cheaper than 3ds max too. It's mostly used for vehicle modeling AFAIK.