How to convert a car

1 Introduction

I loved the F1 2010 so much but I was very disappointed in the SDD conversion of the mod. And the fact that nobody really cared about the 2010 era of cars forced me to do it myself. After all, you are never better served than by yourself. But entering the modding scene isn't really straightforward. If you have no experience in modding (like myself) the AC pipeline can be hard to grasp especially when you never used blender before. There is a great guide by luchian that is a great resource for grasping how a car works in Assetto Corsa. But still not straightforward. Which is why nowadays what most newbies do now is just 3Dsimed body swap of Codemasters models on SDD cars and call it a day. Sometimes, they even start a Patreon and sell this.

In order to prevent more rushed conversions plaguing the community and this whole Patreon network I have compiled all the knowledge I gathered while doing experiments and conversions so that anyone can convert the car he wants in Assetto Corsa. While conversion is generally a grey area and not well seen in the community as it demotivates people from creating cars from scratch, I do believe it isn't such a bad practice as long as it is controlled (personal use, non-profit conversion).

If this guide helps you learn and that thanks to it you were able to convert cars you wanted to drive, please do not engage in profit activities based on it, and try to not use copyrighted content by others modders from the scene such as tires, sounds, and physics. When I released my F1 2010 v1 mod, I asked permission of ponz to use his physics, asked a sound modder to create sounds for my cars, and serg for the drivers skins. You can find in Fiverr many people who can help you with other aspects of your car such as sounds and physics if needed.

2 What is needed

Basic knowledge of Blender

3Dsimed is a simple tool and easy to use, yet it is not that powerful for modding a car from 0 to 1.

Blender can seem very complicated at first, but it is not. What you need is a basic understanding of Blender, its interface, and how to use the software. The donut tutorial is a great introduction to fully mastering Blender which will greatly help you. And if you don't want to spend 10 hours learning blender (which is already a bad thing since patience is needed for the rest of the guide) focus on mastering these 3 points :

• Knowing the interface, the buttons, and their uses. Edit mode vs render mode.

• Moving in the space.

• How to parent objects, how to create empties, rotate and move objects.

Lot of time, patience, and not giving up

For my FVA conversion, the total of hours spent on it is around 30 hours. Which includes learning, research, trial and error. While I had the help of some people in GT-planet and people such as synapse giving me some leads, most of my knowledge comes from reverse engineering cars. How they are built, the shader used on a selected part of the car, the texture used, and shader values. If you want to learn more and do more things with your car, this is a necessary step.

Assetto Corsa can be really annoying and your car can have unwanted behavior, weird bugs, or the rendering of the model doesn't meet your expectations. I had a lot of bugs nearly everytime I worked on a car. And it can really drive you crazy (fortunately my passion for FVA made me stick with Assetto Corsa and not abandon midway)

You can also play music while modding which I definitely recommend. It gives you a great motivation boost. Personally, I love listening to some cyberpunk music like militech theme or NCPD prowl. Listening to some F1 soundtrack and using the nostalgia as a mental boost helps too. Put yourself in the best condition possible.

Never spend too much time at once. This is the best way to burn yourself out and make you bored of modding. A lot of people lost motivation after spending 30 hours a week

Make your own researches

My guide is in no way a substitute for the Assetto Corsa pipeline or any other guide you can find, the only aim here is to help you enter the modding process by giving you the basics and how to learn by yourself if you want to explore more. If you have a basic understanding of modding, you can understand better what's written in the AC Pipeline and reverse engineer how other cars are built.

Asking for help

The community is really helpful in that regard, but make no mistake, no one will help you if you skip steps and ask very obvious questions. Most of the time the answer will be "read the AC pipeline". Asking them for example "how do I create a dash for my car" is a no-go. But "I tried doing a dash for my car like that and it's not working, does anyone has an idea?" is ok. You can also ask people something that you did not understand in the pipeline and ask for a better explanation. People have no problem with actual questions.

With that in mind let's begin the journey