Work In Progress - Formula Palmer Audi by Classic Motorsport Hub

[ThePanzafahra]

I've been working on this for about a year by now, haven't really started documenting my progress before earlier this year, though. It started as a project to sort of teach myself 3d modelling. I'll be honest, I could've chosen an easier car to model than the FPA. Thanks Panoz for keeping such great records of past cars

I've posted screenshots and whatnot on my Ko-Fi page (not sure I'm allowed to link it), so I won't spam this OP with those. At this point in time, the car is still stuck in the confines of Blender, but I think I'm getting somewhat close to the point where I can consider exporting it into 3dSimEd and go from there.

I'm looking at a first test drive in rFactor 1 sometime this year, maybe early 2025 if things go wrong. However, I'm planning to port/release this car in its 1998-1999 configuration for rF1, rF2, Automobilista 1 and Assetto Corsa. I also want to model this car's evolutions until 2010 (the final year of Formula Palmer Audi) but that'll be done once the 1998-1999 car is running stable in the sim.

Special thanks to modding team ORM for teaching me dozens of Blender tricks and giving me the motivation to keep going, thanks to my contacts at Hewland Gearboxes for help modelling the FGC transaxle, and also thanks to anyone I just forgot to mention for helping me out as well.

Anyway, here are some renders taken today, June 15 2024. Happy Le Mans day, everyone.

 

[ThePanzafahra]

A tiny bit more progress. Not so much on the modelling front (although I did make new tires with some advice from Martin Lacina and Niels Heusinkveld @ AMSU and re-modelled the rear bulk head on the engine cover) but mainly on the skinning front for a livery that will ship whenever the first running version of this car is ported into rFactor.

 

[ThePanzafahra]

A little bit more progress in the last month and a half.

Added some more small details around the center of the body, things like emergency knobs and handles
Textured just about everything except the actual exhaust system (headers, turbocharger, exhaust pipe)
Added a driver model to the cockpit, it's currently the Assetto Corsa standard driver model found in the sdk folder but I may use/make a different one, so I consider this a placeholder.

I've been very close to exporting this to 3dsimed to continue further work to get it working in rfactor just for something else to pop up for me to add/fix, so who knows how long this will stay in Blender.

 

[ThePanzafahra]

I'll admit, the car looks ten thousand times better in Blender than it does in rFactor. However, this can all still be sorted. For now, the car has its maiden drive behind it, and I couldn't be prouder of the fact my PC didn't get nuked in the process.