MGR ‘99’s Automation Auto Designing Advice and Tips
AKA How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Long Loading Times
When designing a car in automation it’s best to understand what you should and shouldn’t do. To make things easier for me, I’ll mainly be using one body and a specific decade to visualize the written part for this first tutorial, but I’ll use other also to illustrate some things to look out for in general.
My very first piece of advice, don’t think that you can easily apply IRL designs or design languages on an Automation body, you first have to understand which bodies work in what way, what their morphing and fixture placement limits are, where and how you can place certain fixtures ( like on many wedge shaped bodies you will encounter issues with placing fixtures above the front bumper, since at a certain point, the body is set to react differently where it goes from being front view and top view fixture placement).
As a general rule, don’t make designs on bodies that don’t work well or are completely different to what you want to design. Because that may cause, poor fixture placement, missing geometry which your selected body may not have and may leave your design…… let’s say not quite right, well, there theoretically is a lot that I could list, but to try and keep it short, don’t do that.
Don’t leave things up to the imagination, add as much detail as you can and make it understandable and easily readable.
Don’t just stick to vanilla fixtures, mods add so much to what you can create, it would be a shame not to use them, and when an Open Beta is out, probably get that so you get the newest experimental fixtures and bodies. Unless you are a pirate or have a low spec PC, mods are a must. Absolute must haves for starters are Chickenbiscuit’s Showroom Dome, Terrazi’s Trueno (3D font), Terrazi’s Windscreen Washer Nozzles, Terrazi’s Customizable exhaust tips and Chickenbiscuit’s L5’s MDHL 4.21. (Honestly, just get pretty much every mod, these are just the ones are the ones that seemed the most important…. Maybe not the nozzles, but still).
When making a new car, it’s important to follow these guides.
Body
Choose the most appropriate body for what you are trying to make, as mentioned before, use a body that’s the most appropriate for the design that you are trying to create.
I am going to be creating a regular, mid-range mid 2000’s coupe.
I will not be using this body, because it is too sporty for my needs and likely won’t work with the fixtures I plan on using.
I will however go with this one.
Since it’s much more suitable for a regular production coupe from the mid 2000’s, that’s not a super car.
Be creative, you can use older or newer bodies for designs that are set in a different time period, this will make it not viable for the best stats in automation, but this is a design tutorial after all
I used a mid 90s supercar body to make a mid 80s supercar for example.
But I won’t need to with this current car.
Morphing
Body morphing, take a few minutes to shape the body for the best design possible while trying to avoid issues with the morphs, such as overlapping mesh and or mesh spikes, and try not to worry about the stats, this is a design tutorial after all :^)
As you can see, I’ve morphed the rear and front of this body.
If possible, morph the height of the front accordingly to your desired look, but I advise you to think of how the headlamps you use will act on that shape.
Colour
Choosing a neutral colour for the designing process, which will help you see the fixtures better and what they may cause such as tearing and or spiking mesh.
Fixture use
Understanding the importance of wrapping fixtures around the Front and front-side of the body, since IRL most if not all cars have headlamps, grilles and all sorts of details which curve around the body of the car.
If you set the lights too close together, you will lack the space for a proportionally sized grille.
Don’t be afraid to be creative with fixtures, such as using ones what are meant to be used on the front and changing their materials so they could be used on the rear for example.
For instance, you can use hood bulges to create a sculpted front (or rear) for the corners of the cars bumper. You can do this to make the car more interesting and more realistic, since most cars don’t have completely flat noses.
Also don’t forget to use the most appropriate setting for the fixture, either Align to or Cardinal Lock, and don’t forget to enable the mirroring on this fixture
Sometimes, even if the body has morphable bumpers, it’s sometimes best to just use hood bulges and bumper bars to create extruded bumpers, because more often than not, the morphing might cause the face of the car, that’s right above the bumper, to become a bit melted and ugly appearance after the morph. Not all bodies are like this, this is all dependent on the body and the design you are after.
I used the second bumper here, as you can see I used two of them to create this bumper, main one in the middle and a much shorter one on the side. It’s there so there is more geometry to make a smoother curve around the body.
The first two bumpers I primarily use for this sort of use, making new bumpers, the next two I use for bumper protectors and on the sides for details such as chrome and door protectors.
Such as the Headlamps, Taillights, windscreen wipers, Front, rear and side indicators, fuel door, mirrors, grilles, door handles, an antenna, exhausts, number plates and even badging. And even stuff like bumper protectors and such, will make your cars more realistic and more interesting looking.Never forget to have all the necessary fixtures for a production car!
While talking about badging, scale them appropriately! Don’t make your badging all over the rear of the car, that makes it look cheap and toy-like, just don’t.
Also, protip, use another fixture to help you align the text along the car.
And at the end choose the best environment to showcase your creation! Best to avoid ones that cause sharp shadows, show individual fixtures, weird reflections and possible fixture normals issues.
I suggest 60s showroom from Chicknbiscuit’s Showroom Dome. It’s a great enviroment that looks great and runs well too.
Thank you for checking out my little tutorial, this is my first time making one, so feedback would be much appreciated. And if you saw some issues with the tutorial, don’t hesitate and point them out!
And before anyone says that I left out steps on how I made my car, this is more for general design, I’m not showing you how to recreate my creation, it’s more for you to improve your skills and avoid some often made mistakes, and that’s why I’m not telling you what wheels to choose and what colour you should choose when presenting your final design or whatever.
Also currently there are some issues with most of the PNG images, for some reason they upload as JPG’s. I’ll try to fix them soon.
