Hello everyone,
As someone who has been playing automation for a while now, I would like to make some minor suggestions for the way cars are exported to BeamNG, as to be fully honest i love both games.
This post will highlight some ideas / minor fixes that can go quite a way in terms of quality of life.
I’ll note down below some of my suggestions to the topic at hand, feel free to let me know if you have any other ideas.
••• ESC + LC option in automation for a while now has been working as just ESC, which in of it self is actually really good honestly, however the Launch Control Option would be a nice touch to see added as it’s approximately 4 lines of code in the BeamNG engine file so I would think it should not be too difficult to add (i am not a developer and i could be completely wrong in this) think even a very simple and primitive LC would be good fun, especially with how realisticly cars are exported. (I do want to note that in the case of turbo systems the LC also retards ignition and builds boost so this could be an amazing little detail to add which can be extremely handy on big power big turbo cars)
••• Lighting Fixture Tweaks - For a while now i’ve been having a hard time with any lighting related fixtures when it comes to the exporter, in Automation you can select your fixtures to do what you tell them do to, for example what piece is the Tail Light, what is a Brake Light as those are different, what is a DRL and what is a Healight again different things, and in the Photo Mode / Car Builder everything looks and works amazing. However when it comes to the exporting some issues arise, mainly for some reason almost nothing (except turn signals) is properly appointed a function in BeamNG as it was chosen in Automation.
Most of the time anything red = stop light & brakelight together, anything reflective white = reverse, anything pure white = headlight, you can see how this can create a few issues, finally to this i would like to note the brightness of the lights on exported cars is beyond nuts, if i turn on my headlights it’s like a portable sun and from what i’ve checked i can not turn this down.
NOTE: This system i’ve noticed that over the years has GREATLY improved from when it was first introduced and i think it just needs a little bit of polishing and it will be a good quality of life.
••• Exhausts - Just a very very minor thing i’ve noticed, any 3D Fixtured angled upright or downright exhausts most of the time when exported spit their flame not in the direction of the exhaust but rather in a horizontal line.
••• Advanced Trim Sounds - The new option to adjust the sound of the car using the advanced trim settings is absolutely amazing, i think a small suggestion there would be to add the option to the engine designer itself, then again the sound is tuned for the car, it’s a little bit of a blurry line, an idea i had is to simply stick the option to modify the sound during the Testing Section of the car and keep the option available in advanced trim settings or perhaps engine designer, this way you can modify the engine sound as you’re hearing it go throughout the rev range, rather than adjust a slider, change menus, hear difference, rinse and repeat until you achive the desired sound.
••• AWD Torque Split - Regarding this i want to start off by noting, i am certain this is NO easy task by any stretch of the imagination, but i would still like to suggest the idea, most modern cars nowadays that are listed as AWD are a 60F40R torque split in best case scenario where the car is at a total loss of traction and under normal conditions are primarily FWD and almost no power is sent to the rear, i am not certain if this is something even possible but it would be amazing to see the option to select torque split for a car as of right now i’m simply using the 4x4 Gearbox when i want a car to have the option between RWD and AWD, which i think is a neat workaround.
These are all of the main ones that come to mind, again, these are merely suggestions not complaints at all. I think some of them could be quite easy to implement yet still go a long way in terms of experiencing the cars.