During work on a Rosalie mod I have found a complete technical documentation of all stock Citroen cars before 1959. I cannot speak French, but it is not so hard to read with a help of a dictionary. Therefore for me it is easier to make a realistic stock version and leave derivatives allowed for the community I have combined the data with blueprints from Heller manuals, which should do the job.
Progress: added headlights, wheels and windshield. Started with approximation of the suspension.
Wheel alignment and steering are tuned according to technical documentation. However there are some limitations which are not supported in the current simulation: front trailing arm, link between front and rear suspension and an old French 400 mm rim size.
The IRL car has an extraordinary suspension where a special link between front and rear wheels enables an extremely soft suspension. Combined with 15° caster, it is almost impossible to roll over despite uncomfortable tilt during cornering. Tried to approximate this using a linear front suspension + extended suspension travel + slightly smaller 15 inch wheels. The current version is funny to drive, but I am still able to roll it over in some corners.
Progress: added windows, doors, rear mudguards and taillights. Luckily the car has a really simple lines which are easy to recreate. However, some shading fixes will be needed.
Thanks, currently I have all the information, but maybe I will have some questions in the future
Progress: minor shading fixes, added chassis and a front bumper. The car is awfully slow (even slower than Hadimrška), however it is not easy to roll over despite frightening angles I have also tried to simulate a twin-engined 4x4 "Sahara" version. Looks like a capable crawler, but not as funny as the stock car, which is considerably lighter.
The original "ripple bonnet" cars used 355cc ~7hp and 425cc ~12hp engines.
I use the second one, but still it cannot go faster than 80kph
Two years ago I almost bought one IRL, but rational thinking have stopped me unfortunately (these tend to rust really badly). Therefore I would like to have a virtual one at least
The 425CC 12hp had a announced vmax from 70 to 80kph IIRC
Guess if you reach the 80 it's a great success haha
I was about to have one to bring back to life, the floor was fully rotten, ofc they're changeable but it's a price.. Thanks virtuality for compensating
I am concurently working on a licensed Škoda Felicia (both stock and racing version) which is suitable for LFS. All my Czechoslovak cars have a realistic suspension supported by LFS. However, all the French ones needed some rough approximations unfortunately:
Citroen Xsara - passive rear axle steering (but still feels similar to IRL)
Citroen DS - hydraulic link between front and rear wheel
Citroen Traction Avant - rear beam axle
Citroen Rosalie - beam axles
The problem is, that I like strange cars. Making a quality licensed mods is not easy for me (I am really not good at 3D modeling), so I made this simple side project to take a break, when shading optimization of the main project gets too frustrating
I agree, LFS needs mods with less tricks and there could be a way how to filter mods using category such as:
mod is according to specs and author drove it IRL
mod is according to specs but author did not drive it IRL
mod is according to specs and author drove it IRL but uses some rough approximations
mod is according to specs but uses some rough approximations
mod is not documented and roughly approximated
Maybe I should add such category in my mod descriptions.
While waiting for a manufacturers approval for my other mod and for technical data from archives , I am back on this little side project.
Progress: started with a dashboard.
Progress: started with minor geometry details. Added functional windscreen wipers. Started working on a cell-shading to provide Duponts and Duponds car from Adventures of Tintin comics.
Progress: created textures, added skin support, instruments and a steering animation. The mod is almost done. Only small details some default skins and a proper LOD2 are missing now
Maybe in the future, but now I am going back to my main project, development of a licensed rally car
That was a pretty good guess and I was even thinking about positions of rotator subobjects to enable an animated decomposition However, it would need a much more complex model (currently only wipers are movable). In this case the skin is based on "The Garden", which was a 1995 Slovak/Czech/French movie. In the movie it was a 2CV6, but personally I like the "ripple bonnet" design more as it is a perfect minimalism (and much easier to make in Blender ).
very good mod indeed
I drove one of those in the 90's and it feels close to my remembering. The only thing is the mod steering feels lighter than the real one, but that may be caused by things like :
- it is a sim on a 2d screen
- I drive with mouse
- the real car steering wheel was very large and thin and u could not steer that fast as with a mouse, and even with a computer steering wheel, wich is much much smaller
last thing is the sound.
the real car had a quite unique sound wich is very hard to get close to with LFS.
but maybe it could be a bit better still, removing gear whine, and adding an specific air intake sound to simulate the flute tone of the real thing. much work however to get it right
overall another very nice contribution to the mods collection
great job again stuchlo !
Thanks a lot for a detailed feedback. About the steering, I think that it is caused by the mouse. It is quite heavy using my wheel even on 35 force.
That sound is just a temporary placeholder derived from my older mod. To be honest, the engine sound was always the weakest spot of my mods. Will have to learn how to create it more properly and rework it in the future (for all my mods).