The format is .mesh, I'll point Serhiy here to answer in more details. As there are some specific stuff that has to be added as morph animations.

Which 3d modeling program are you using? And I will link you to a plugin.

That reminds me I need to have him write a wiki entry for models.

I am currently trying to learn how to use Bforartist, which is a very customised fork of Blender with an improved users interface. The developer of the program claims on the website that most Blender plugins should work fine with it.

I believe http://wiki.ogre3d.org/Blender+Exporter would work.

When I get back into the office I'll see if I can dig up the rudimentary tutorial for 3dsm. That should cover the basics of what is required.

Thanks I will check it out.

It looks like the website that is refered to in the Ogre forms to download the plugin has terminated the account. It is also for an obsolete version of Blender, 1.5.x. Blender is now on 1.7.x, which Bforartist is based off of, and about to release the overhauled version 1.8.x. Is there any other options?

I was just going by the wiki. Kinda hard, since I am on a pda.

Try this:
https://forums.ogre3d.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=61485

Thanks again I will try it out and see if it works.

I figured out what I needed to do. I downloaded both blender2ogre-0.6.0 and OgreCommandLineTools_1.7.2. They came from https://code.google.com/archive/p/blender2ogre/downloads and http://wiki.ogre3d.org/OgreXmlConverter respectively. I wasn't able to understand how to use the newer version of blender2ogre that was availble off of Github.

Then I used the following tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2skvroGcns and http://thrivegame.wikidot.com/blender-and-ogre-tutorial . I used the second one to figure out how to convert the .mesh.xml file to a regular .mesh file.

All I have left to do is figure out how to put the .mesh file into the game useing the mod tools and see if it works.

Awesome! Glad you got it working. I'll dig through the file server sometime tonight for the old tutorial (several harddrive failures since I wrote it, so I don't remember quite where it is anymore). And I also pointed Serhiy to this thread, but he was also quite busy fixing some stuff Steam recently rejected for trading cards.

http://gearcity.info/tutorials/vehicle.html

Seems like I still have most of it on the site.

Wow, the process looks pretty complicated. I didn't know that you needed to create a pivit point, multiple meshes, and create an animation. I am still sort of a "noob" at 3D modeling. So, I am not sure how to adopt all of those steps into Bforartist or even Blender for that matter. Do you think that you will eventually make a tutorial for Blender?

Originally posted by MediaevalRocket:

Wow, the process looks pretty complicated. I didn't know that you needed to create a pivit point,

In 3dsm, pivot point is just placing a "center" point for the mesh. Blender should have an equivalent.

multiple meshes,

Actually you just copy the base mesh and then apply the changes to the copy. You then do a "morph" animation between the two meshes. The 3d program should interpolate between the two in the animation. This is how "character" designers in most games work.

Do you think that you will eventually make a tutorial for Blender?

I can't say. Serhiy's and other contractors/outsourcing companies did most of the 3d artwork for the game. I am not even sure what they use. I haven't touched a 3d suite since I got an educational copy of 3dsm 5 or 7 15-ish years ago. The 3d bits I did in the game are all code generated/handwritten XML (mostly just boxes with textures applied to them). So I certainly won't be making any blender tutorials. You probably know more than me in that respect. :)

Your old wiki says. "First you need to create the base mesh. This is the starting mesh of the model in the game. We'll use this mesh as base for all the morphs in the game.
We must name this mesh in this format cartype_era_yourcarname." Then it has the list of possible eras and car types that is blank. Do you still have a list of these?

I believe that I figuered out how to set the Pivot Point in Bforartist, it's different from standard Blender. I found out how to do it in the manual which can be found here: https://www.bforartists.de/data/manual/3.1%20Editors%20-%203D%20View.pdf
However, I still haven't figured out how to do a "Morph" animation in Bforartist. I do know how to copy and modify a model and do keyframe animation.

P.S. I am also interested at the prospect of learning Morphing for uses outside of making mods for the game. I really like watching old CGI videos, it was the main reason I decided to learn how to use 3D software. I think it would be cool if some day I could make something reminiscent of PDI's works of the early-mid 90s.

We must name this mesh in this format cartype_era_yourcarname." Then it has the list of possible eras and car types that is blank. Do you still have a list of these?

This is no longer relevent. You're free to name your models anything you want so long as they do not conflict with other files in the game.

This document you're following was for crowd sourced artist way back when I didn't have the money or interest in the game to attract talent. So anyone could submit cars for the game and I'd pay them a flat amount. (I believe it was $20). The naming scheme was to help me keep it organized, even though half of the people who submitted didn't understand the concept.

I can't find anything specific for Bforartist, but this may help you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBvA2Hduk_w

There is also a slower version too.