Hardest mod? Automation/BeamNG Gauges & Wheels

This isn't just a "do this", it also explains how to do it, and hopefully it'll ease you into understanding how this stuff works, so you can make it work for yourself :)
if you want to see other videos -
this goes into many different things - • The Complexities of Ma...
this goes into moving chassis nodes - • Why You Should Modify ...
here I show how to 3D print your automation cars - • Turned my Automation T...
and here I put a BeamNG car back into Automation haha - • I put in too much effo...
here are the time codes -
0:34 what you'll need
1:08 unpacking your mod
1:55 wheel blender
8:47 nodes
17:40 props code
23:34 Dials
23:34 Dials blender
26:07 dials code
This video tutorial took a lot of effort, I hope you like it enough to check out my other content
leave a comment maybe? :)
send me stupid things on twitter fillman86
here's the discord - rules are don't be an arse lol / discord
feel free to use footage from my videos, up to 50% of any one video, just credit me, and supply a link to the video with it
want to throw your money away? - store.steampowered.com/wishli...

[@fillman86]

this tutorial is old, and there's easier ways to do it now that don't even require modding. Here's a tutorial I made - kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZPKqmqkjJqlh68

[@omar.alsharif]

Holy shit I swear the BeamNG devs should hire you, and have you as the individual who handles the Automation/BeamNG import. Fantastic job on both learning the details of the model and teaching it in an incredibly clear way. I understood everything in this tutorial, and that's amazing given: 1. I've never used blender 2. I don't have Automation 3. I don't have beamNG

[@fillman86]

XD thanks, and maybe you'll have them 1 day

[@TiagoTiagoT]

To make selecting the wheel inside all the other geometry easier, you can use View-> View Regions-> Clipping Region and then drag a box around the the steering wheel region, to create a temporary view that hides everything outside the box, and then it's just a matter of rotating the camera to view thru the hole you cut. The camera angle you start with before defining the Clipping Region might be important; if you don't get a good "cut" at first you can always try again (I think the first time you click the option again it just clears it, then if you wanna create a new cut, you click on it once more).

[@fillman86]

you know what, I could have just used "h" to hide.... but I'm fine with giving people less steps in tutorials, because it leads to less mistakes :P And anyone who's more skilled will know how to do it better :)

[@spacewarier4531]

Right after I make my custom body I will get onto making these, thank you for the awsome tutorial 😄

[@fillman86]

wow you're really going at it!

[@spacewarier4531]

im almost half way making the body now but there is a lot more than just the body i want to make in blender

[@fillman86]

@@spacewarier4531 fair enough

[@Cain-x]

This is really tedious work - thanks for documenting this!

[@fillman86]

haha it was, some people have made simpler options, but this is much more comprehensive, and allows you to do more..... but it's super annoying to do it this way XD

[@meehdrescher]

This is the best video on this topic I have ever seen, you have well earned your sub :D also tip for 5:41: press shift+s and click "selection to cursor (keep offset)", then do the finetuning on the z-axis

[@fillman86]

thanks, I've been meaning to delve deeper into blender, I'll give that a try :) I'm glad you liked the video :)

[@meehdrescher]

@@fillman86 could you maybe help me port my ps1-esque models into automation? I have no idea how all of that stuff works and i'd like to contribute a few things myself.

[@fillman86]

@@meehdrescher hmm I made a stream on how I make my mod bodies - kzbin.info/www/bejne/bYKVh2d_nt-fsJY but there's Hard Rooster Labs here on youtube, and his tutorials are comprehensive

[@Builtit1]

This was hands down the best tutorial ive seen. i hope theres alot more lol

[@fillman86]

actually.... there is :P

[@user-pg3nz9wh1i]

Dude you are a genius, on my way to binge your Automation modding content

[@fillman86]

I'm glad you liked the video :)

[@bitelaserkhalif]

I managed to add the steering wheel, but I must use baseTranslation or else it spawns underneath the car Edit: seems to be intended behaviour, next is just realigning

[@Cattyxdd]

I will definitely try these when the new automation update comes out!

[@fillman86]

I keep getting tempted to mod automation's exporter, and this could be one thing I try :P

[@Artybayt]

Thank you very much dude. Your video is very helpful. Please make more content about BeamNG modding. You're pretty good teacher. You making this world better really. :D

[@fillman86]

haha I've made so many modding videos! and I keep on doing so :)

[@patrickderp1044]

holy shit i just wanted to do nascar in beamng and now i fell down a rabbit hole of becoming some five star modder

[@fillman86]

haha I've done NASCAR a few times, and if these tutorials I make level you up, then that's cool too :)

[@thechosen1617]

You are a freakin legend!!

[@fillman86]

glad to help :)

[@DRzOG]

So, everything goes well until I add the [“st0”, “a46”] that causes an instability in beam but if I don’t add that the wheel turns but obviously it’s under the car help?

[@FemboyAvgeek]

Instead of moving the model like that, you can do shift+s, move selection to cursor

[@fillman86]

fair, but you'd still have to line it up a lot. Though I do think this will make it a bit simpler :)

[@gittarrgy01]

For some reason I think the point my wheel turns around isn't in the middle, it looks as if it is spinning around the bottom of itself, I have messed a bit with the rotation values but it isn't changing what I want, if you know why this might have happened maybe you could help me with it?

[@nick-qd6om]

i just go in description and enter this ~prop:_,steering,0,1,0,0,0,0,-900,900,0,1~ and change _ to the number your steering is

[@fillman86]

yeah, this was way before then, and tbh I wasn't very good at modding then either. I've even made 2 videos following this, the final one included how to do that too :P

[@bitelaserkhalif]

Next: engine swaps with meshes, and wheel swaps with beamng stock wheels BTW idea for gauge and wheel, just move it in y coordinates so it'll be ez to separate

[@fillman86]

move what in the y coordinates? make what easier to separate?

[@bitelaserkhalif]

@@fillman86 before export to beam, steering wheel and the parts you want to separate is moved up, so it'll be easy to select and separate. but if u directly use on beamng it'll look awkward.

[@fillman86]

@@bitelaserkhalif oh yeah, I've done that before, but usually steering wheels are an after thought :P

[@riki_alex]

Gotta question. I have mod BMW E46 sedan, which is fairly good mod, however, petrol and diesel versions have the same tacho/gauge meters (they are all 7k revs, diesel should have 6k revs). I got another mod which is coupe, that already has 6k rpm in diesel variants, 7k in gasoline ones. Is there any option to copy-paste/replace this tacho from coupe mod to the sedan mod to work? I know I sound greedy, but I'm perfectionist, and that one extra 1k rpm is catching my eye.

[@fillman86]

There’s a lot to go into here, I’d suggest going to my discord channel and going to my beaming section where there is lots of skilled modders

[@bennetenglisch1467]

this has been working for me but now after some game update my newly modded steering wheels spin in a very eggy motion , is there a way to change the the direktion of the rotational axis?

[@fillman86]

yes, you'll want to change the "rotation" or "multiplier" values

[@ThatCarWashDude]

soo the nodes are the onlt thing showing in beamng, i think i messed up a tad bit

[@slightlyinsaneraf]

so I attempted this my self, everything works, managed to figure many things out myself, but I have one MASSIVE issue now... The wheel bounces around as if it's going through a damn seizure, seemingly in all directions, but mostly noticable in x axis. I tried multiple nodes to try to get rid of this issue, tried your nodes, I tried many of my own, seems like changing them does make an affect, some are super bouncy, some are not as bad, but as soon as I start driving it starts doing same thing again. Any idea what would be the solution, got pretty sick of it after 3 damn hours of trying to fix this

[@fillman86]

increase the nodeweight of the created nodes

[@ZeroPlays28]

how do i do this in a speedometer?

[@ZeroPlays28]

when i exported the car body that has no steering wheel. and did the stuff in notepad++ and i loaded beamng drive my car was body was black what did i do wrong here? can someone help me?

[@fillman86]

watch this tutorial instead, it can also be used with dials to give speed kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZPKqmqkjJqlh68

[@--fishiiki-]

Hey Fill, when I re-entered Beam after setting the call to body1, my entire car went deep black except for the engine, wheels, tires, suspension and chassis. Do you know what causes this and how I fix it? Thanks in advance :) edit: the steering wheel is gone which is good, but still, everything is deep matte black

[@fillman86]

there's a few things that could cause this, try clearing beamng's cache, and if that doesn't fix it, go to my discord, and ask there

[@--fishiiki-]

@@fillman86 thanks for the quick reply! I'm gonna try that tomorrow

[@user-sl5zh8bk8y]

btw does this work with pop up headlights?

[@fillman86]

yes, but I've never done it

[@1ybr]

can i export a as a roadster and selecting the steering wheel then make another copy of the car with the roof and import my previously selected wheel on it?

[@fillman86]

you mean take the wheel from one car, and put it in another exported car? you can, but you need to either apply materials from the destination car, or put the required material code from the main materials file from the old car, into the new car main materials file (being careful to not put the new materials at the bottom of the file)

[@1ybr]

@@fillman86 what if i made the car with the steering wheel above the car so selecting it will be easier ?

[@fillman86]

@@1ybr that's also an easy way to do it :)

[@1ybr]

@@fillman86 thanks for your help man+ do you know any troubleshooting tutorial video or forum post?

[@fillman86]

@@1ybr trouble shooting? my discord is a pretty good place

[@Jammer988]

hello im trying to do this but when i try to import my dae file (my dae file is random name and isnt a notepad its just a white page icon) it says file format is not supported in file. How can i fix that

[@fillman86]

how big is the dae file?

[@Jammer988]

@@fillman86 75mb

[@fillman86]

@@Jammer988 odd, then I don't know what's happened

[@c1x5w89]

Could you do a tutorial on adding axles ?

[@fillman86]

it's about the only mod that I would say is a fair bit harder than this :P so I'll probably pass on that for now

[@tomaspiscicelli3288]

Things I like watching but I know I’ll never be able do 😩👍

[@fillman86]

haha I've laid it out so clearly :P

[@tomaspiscicelli3288]

It is, but I don’t have time

[@fillman86]

@@tomaspiscicelli3288 ah, fair enough

[@Ya5hM]

I used to edit video with blender

[@fillman86]

and i think you're insane :P

[@louismaas9349]

So i did everything the same to my knowledge but when i ctrl+r the body is completely invisible and im not sure how to fix it so im basically stuck around 9:10

[@fillman86]

that's what's called a syntax error. You've basically made a formatting error with an incorrect amount of brackets, missing commas, or made a misspelling... finding said issues can be hard, see if your chosen code editing software has an error checking section, or delete and restart :/

[@louismaas9349]

@@fillman86 ahh okay thank you so much, ill try that. Ive already deleted and restarted so hopefully i can find the problem but thank you!

[@louismaas9349]

I only have one flexbody and its the body itself im not sure if thats a problem im not very experienced in coding so im not really sure what to look for, i only changed the number at the end of the name like in your video and the same in visual studio but it still doesnt work. Im a bit lost.

[@bennetenglisch1467]

is there any way to avoid no texture problems, the chrome ring on my wheel isnt chrome anymore

[@fillman86]

figure out the name of the material in blender (including the length of the name), and change the name in the main material file to match. In the future, keep your car names short in automation, and you'll be less likely to have this issue with blender

[@bennetenglisch1467]

@@fillman86 now I see what you mean, the names were messed up because of theyer length I can actually fix it manually in the material file as you said👍

[@bennetenglisch1467]

@@fillman86 is there a way to lengthen/change the car name afterwards?

[@fillman86]

@@bennetenglisch1467 If you just want it to show up with a different name, then I believe you edit the "info.json" file

[@Shad0w_353]

Hey Fillman, Did you see the new update they just realized for beamng?

[@fillman86]

yep, I'll be doing something on it soon

[@user-xf2eq7to1p]

It's only 1:42 seconds in and I am already stuck. I have gone into the unpacked folder, into my car folder, I quick searched for the .dea, found it and then opened it up in Blender... but it doesn't a window just appears momentarily then disappears.

[@fillman86]

try using the latest version of blender, if you already are, try using an older version (make sure you're using the proper importing option)

[@user-xf2eq7to1p]

@@fillman86 What version are you using?

[@user-xf2eq7to1p]

@@fillman86 I copied exactly what you did.

[@Voxeldust]

So I tried to do this on 0.30 and when I added the beams it caused instability, has anyone solved this?

[@fillman86]

make the nodes heavier

[@Voxeldust]

@@fillman86 I see, thank you

[@realMMRT]

9:15 i did everything but my car turned into a no texture maybe your tutorial doesn't work for new versions of automation I'm using openbeta LCV 4.2

[@realMMRT]

i named my car d and its the same... no texture

[@fillman86]

tutorial still works. The problem you're describing sounds like you're giving the car a long name. What you can do is look at the material names in blender, and make sure they match in the main.materials file

[@realMMRT]

@@fillman86 ok thanks i will test it

[@tomaspiscicelli3288]

Can you do a tutorial on how to fix the lights?

[@fillman86]

what's wrong?

[@tomaspiscicelli3288]

They light up everything, not like real projectors

[@fillman86]

@@tomaspiscicelli3288 I think that's more of a limitation of the game?

[@1ybr]

can you make a video about adding beamng steering wheels to automation cars plz?

[@fillman86]

just rip them from the game files, easy done

[@1ybr]

@@fillman86 well my experience in Jbeam editing is potato level

[@purlikvods8368]

Welp, there goes my week i guess

[@fillman86]

Haha once you get used to it, it can be done in 5 minutes or so :)

[@purlikvods8368]

@@fillman86 Im having a problem, my car doesnt have a .dae. It only has a .car and if I try to open that with blender it doesnt work. I also found another .dae file in another folder but if I try to open that one it still doesnt work

[@ZeroPlays28]

@@purlikvods8368 its now called a folder_mesh.dae

[@ZeroPlays28]

@@purlikvods8368 its in a folder

[@TiagoTiagoT]

Blender is free everywhere, not just on Steam

[@fillman86]

I know, but I was saying it was free, but also available on steam :P (I prefer it on steam, so I'm not at the whims of a hacker who has a similar web address as blender, and download something I shouldn't haha)

[@DRzOG]

@@fillman86like me fr haha

[@daguyfromohio]

there is two daes, one is body mesh and one is just called mesh the mesh is the engine and the body mesh crashes when i loada it up

[@fillman86]

this is old and there's easier ways now. Check out this video where it takes no modification anymore - kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZPKqmqkjJqlh68 if blender is crashing on import, then try using an older version of blender (though it shouldn't be crashing in the first place)

[@daguyfromohio]

@@fillman86 I did that tutorial you sent and it works thanks!

[@fillman86]

@@daguyfromohio yeah, I don't know why they weren't more public about this update tbh.... but hey, it makes for a good views on youtube lol

[@daguyfromohio]

@@fillman86 Also my driver camera isnt near the steering wheel, Is there any way to fix that? Also thank you

[@fillman86]

@@daguyfromohio there's a miscellaneous fixture in automation that places cameras. Also when placing it, there's a small window at the bottom right of your screen that'll show the view

[@Ya5hM]

Why I hate doing this live editing in beamng I have one word to say harddrive

[@fillman86]

I've done it on hard drive, as long as your ram isn't a hard drive too

[@giggift8410]

Does this still work in the latest update?

[@giggift8410]

I’m asking because i’ve tried several times but my body seems to haven’t materials

[@fillman86]

it still works, how long is your car's name?

[@giggift8410]

@@fillman86 it is carrano_c75_emozione_gts actually it is quite long, should i try to export it with a shorter name?

[@fillman86]

@@giggift8410 that will help, otherwise you'll have to go to your materials file, and shorten every name to what it gets shortened to in blender

[@giggift8410]

@@fillman86 ok thank you very much man now i’m gonna try, have a nice day

[@Roobie-Roo]

hello mr fill :) I think you know why I am here

[@fillman86]

;)

[@ChromaticSchnitzel]

Sneak 100

[@devakadex9588]

Really hope automation eventually makes this automatic.. I'm not techy enough to understand this 😭😭 ill pay anyone 20$ to do it for me ngl 😭

[@fillman86]

The devs have said that it’s not in the plans. The exporter is so complicated that they can’t figure a way to do it

[@cutecattheiii8216]

My steering wheel is turning up and down not in a circle.

[@fillman86]

sounds like you've applied the "rotation" section on the wrong axis (not to be confused with base translation)

[@cutecattheiii8216]

Your response time is insane, how would I apply it to the, "right" axis?

[@fillman86]

@@cutecattheiii8216 play around with your values :)

[@cutecattheiii8216]

Alright well, a decision begun because I listened to the song My Way looks like is gonna have to end, I've done what I believe was right but the wheel just spins in every direction on it's pivot of st0 but no mater where I put st1 even if it's the right spot it just doesn't turn as it should. Changing the values has done nothing, I believe I am going to have to just give up and reexport it.

[@slightlyinsaneraf]

had that problem, it's because your pivot is rotated the wrong way. It should rotate around a Z axis and in my case it was completely miss aligned. what sorted it for me is throwing wheel model into 3ds max (because for the love of god I can't find this basic function in blender and many say it don't exist in blender and you have to do some messing about for something that can be sorted with 2 clicks in Max) I edited pivot point, and rotated it to desired position... I have another issue now, where steering wheel is attached all that good stuff, but it bounces around in the Z axis mainly... @@cutecattheiii8216

[@genas9949]

Nothing worked for me, the machine just disappeared and the game closed

[@fillman86]

don't know what you've done, consider deleting the mod and restarting

[@genas9949]

rather, I wrote the command incorrectly and that's why it didn't work.@@fillman86

[@genas9949]

what if in the new version the engine is already separate, what should I do?@@fillman86

[@Ya5hM]

We have been trying to contact you about you're car's interior design ideas copyright insurance plz get back to me for more info

[@fillman86]

lol they sent the car for me to do the work on

[@Shad0w_353]

Wait a min is my comments bugged?

[@fillman86]

meaning?

[@Shad0w_353]

@@fillman86 nvm i attempted to make a comment.. But I am pretty sure yt though it was one of those spam bot comments.

[@fillman86]

@@Shad0w_353 weird, nothing's showing up in my filtered section

[@Shad0w_353]

@@fillman86 welp... the original comment that I originally posted showed a way to view node positioning in blender

[@Shad0w_353]

@@fillman86 what I had done was go to blender open up edit mode and look for something that looked like this "

[@FASTROWOFFICIAL]

So im basically stuck at where you paste the steering thing, I have 2-3 Problems or maybe MORE. 1. When i copy the one you pasted and press CTRL + R in BeamNG i just watch my car go to space and can't control it. 2. Im not good at doing coding lmao. 3. And my car is different, it is a Supercar with less fixtures. I need help.

[@fillman86]

flying off into space like that is a syntax error that you've made somewhere here's a simplified tutorial that I just made a few weeks ago - kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZPKqmqkjJqlh68 if you want to learn modding in a more general way, this video may also help - kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZOcoWyGhM-Ehc0

[@FASTROWOFFICIAL]

@@fillman86 Thank you, i will try to fix the problem and watch the video.

[@FASTROWOFFICIAL]

@@fillman86 Though i have tried the hidden steering wheel option but it didn't work.

[@FASTROWOFFICIAL]

i Checked properly, nothing was wrong. it just flies to space when i paste in your code, My game version is 0.30.6 and i am using Notepad++@@fillman86

[@FASTROWOFFICIAL]

Alright this is guaranteed not helpful, wasted my time just for my car to go to space even tho i checked properly.

[@user-bf4gz1sx8b]

idk why my .dae dont exist

[@fillman86]

it'll now be in a sub folder. The name of the folder will be a randomly generated name of numbers and letters (not to be confused with the similar engine folder)

[@user-bf4gz1sx8b]

@@fillman86 ty, and im still thinking where did u paste the steering wheel from in the minute 12:18