What happened to all those NFS modding websites?

[BabiLovesJulia]

A lot of the old school modders have disappeared. What we have now are a handful of circus performers making Hot Wheels cars or talking cars from Pixar movies. It's just disappointing to go on any mod site these days.

[Eevee]

A lot of the old school modders have disappeared.

Yeah, it's just quite sad when many of old school modders go. SLZ Roadstar (formerly Ark-X Stylizer), Eclipse72rus, ODiLISk, MKIIITwinTurbo, and Gamer boy are all good examples of people who made good cars but later stopped doing them. People aging over time might be the reason why their interests change.

What we have now are a handful of circus performers making Hot Wheels cars or talking cars from Pixar movies. It's just disappointing to go on any mod site these days.

Or rather "one circus performer", because from what I can see, Paradoz is really obsessed with Hot Wheels and Pixar's Cars, while me, PonySparkle69, Thunderdrift, and PedroBLR have more focus on real-life vehicles (with only myself and PonySparkle69 have at least one car that isn't based on IRL vehicle, but instead based on toys (my LEGO Racers Raceway Rider) and Pixar's Cars (PonySparkle's Cruz Ramirez)).

[Paul Spain]

What we have now are a handful of circus performers making Hot Wheels cars.

I wouldn't diss making DieCast vehicles come to life . It's something I do quite well given the limited amount of models made that I can use to make those , Modders need to get on the ball making more 4 door sedans outta 2 door models like the Hudson Hornet and Chevy Nova for instance. There is so much we're lacking, Not even them GTA guys have bothered with a 4 door version of the Hornet yet.  

[BabiLovesJulia]

I understand some points, but my criticism regarding new generation modders is their lack of communication with people. For example, the car request threads are always empty, because the modders don't even bother to answer a simple "yes" or "no" to the requests. In this regard, the old generation modders were more helpful.

[Paul Spain]

I understand some points, but my criticism regarding new generation modders is their lack of communication with people. For example, the car request threads are always empty, because the modders don't even bother to answer a simple "yes" or "no" to the requests. In this regard, the old generation modders were more helpful.

Yes, Exactly my trouble..I have asked for 4 door versions of some 2 door vehicles (there seems to be a love affair with only 2 door models of vehicles these days) Only to be ignored.

[Eevee]

I understand some points, but my criticism regarding new generation modders is their lack of communication with people. For example, the car request threads are always empty, because the modders don't even bother to answer a simple "yes" or "no" to the requests. In this regard, the old generation modders were more helpful.

Usually it's because modders don't find the car to be quite interesting to them and have their own tastes on their cars (for example, there are many rare cars in Asphalt 8, but I think many of modders find them not that quite interesting, usually due to the fact that their manufacturers or brands are something that you've never heard of). One kind of people prefer doing sports cars, other prefer doing everyday cars, and then there are even people who prefer making rarities among NFS modding such as kei cars or cars that no one has added them into old NFS game yet. And I gotta say, not everyone can make car models from scratch, and especially if you don't have blueprints or IRL photos of the car you wanted, and especially if the car's body style with fewer doors overshadows its body style with more doors. The only things I can make from scratch are spoilers, rims, and some custom lights (as long as it's not too complex), but for the cars, I limit myself to making GTA SA-style lore-friendly vehicles due to the fact that I am so terrible at modelling cars from scratch. Not to mention about the fact that making a good car model from scratch is a time-consuming task (which is the reason why people take models from other games or, in case of mods made by the people from developing countries (Russia, Brazil, Turkey, etc.) such as krup15, Strik, and Bif B (all of which are all old gen modders), models from GTA mods).
If game developers want to add some specific vehicle to the game, they have to get a license from that vehicle manufacturer, otherwise they can go adding the vehicle under fictional brand or name, like JDM Japanese Drift Master, early Tokyo Xtreme Racer games (by changing badges and, in case of Honda cars in TXR Zero, their chassis code (for JDM, this happened with Toyota Corolla Levin and Mitsubishi Lancer and 300GT/GTO)) and every GTA game (by altering the design and hoping you won't get sued) did. For cars made in developing country, this is a much harder task for developers based outside of these countries, though Slightly Mad Studios, a UK-based studio, managed to create a model of Lada Samara 2108 (a pre-facelift Soviet-era short fender model to be exact) for World of Speed Beta (fun fact: I was one of beta testers of this game) before its Steam release, which had to remove it from car roster for some reason (tbh, remove Lada from the car roster = kill the entire "Russian cars in video games" community).

[BabiLovesJulia]

That's the thing, I didn't ask for cars that haven't been made in games yet, for example. The most I asked for was to just update existing vehicles in the modloader, ed and vlt formats to the current Binary/OGVI combo. Something that certainly isn't that complex, since they're gradually updating some models to this format.

[RandomUser17]

That's the thing, I didn't ask for cars that haven't been made in games yet, for example. The most I asked for was to just update existing vehicles in the modloader, ed and vlt formats to the current Binary/OGVI combo. Something that certainly isn't that complex, since they're gradually updating some models to this format.

Let me adress lack of fulfilled requests with a little bit of history first:
I remember when I first got interested in modding back when CarToolkit was yet to be released. I learned about a tool called VltEd and started using it a lot.
I somehow even got in touch with 379Felipe, who explained to me a LOT of VltEd values and usage, tho he probably doesn't remember it anymore.
But here is a difference - I didn't ask for something to be made for me, I asked how can I do it myself.
People asking for cars were doing it sporadically, and some people (like me) were more interested in actually knowing how to do it.
Fast forward today, I receive weekly requests on Discord or in the comment of my mods "pls make a car XXX, YYY, ZZZ thank you", or even just a model since I showed my work on the other servers. I have enough requests to keep myself occupied for 2 years already, if I ever bothered to make one.
See, back then there were people begging on YouTube and on Discord usually there were people interested in making stuff.
Can't speak for the old times because I wasn't modding before.
I wouldn't mind to make a request, if I were to receive some help, like finding me textures, or making a bodykit with me, or making a Binary+VltEd script, because I HATE SCRIPTING. I much prefer modelling.
Now, what's the point for me to take a request, make a model that I don't like or there are at least 2 of them made already, spend my time making it and constantly hear questions "pls release it already, is it made? Is it done?".
I'm not getting paid for it, so I'm doing it for free. I can get to choose what I want to make and how I want to spend my time.
This applies to your request of making a Binary script. Let me explain a well-made process for a converted car:

• Take a modloader car
• Export it to .obj or .fbx or .z3d, because if you just convert to another BIN with a different XNAME, CarToolkit will break non-vanilla materials and you will have blue parts
• Open it in Blender/Zmodeler, fix all hashed materials, bodykits applied to hoods or custom paints as bodykits (modders were doing that a lot)
• If the car was compiled by CarToolkit before, remove the prefix "OLDXNAME_" from all the parts, because otherwise you will end up with "NEWXNAME_OLDXNAME_" and the model won't load in game
• Import .MWPS files to VltEd, keeping in mind that Unlimiter has different values for brands than most of old mods (so you have to find the value and fix it yourself) and number of gears never applies properly, so you have to fix that manually

And that is not a whole process yet. Those parts alone are time-consuming, and I'd prefer to teach, thst to do it myself over and over again.

[BabiLovesJulia]

More lame excuses. This is tiring... Honestly, I'm going to find a way to try to find the contacts of the old modders, who never refused to meet my requests (at least 50 cars that are posted on NFSCars were born from my orders, did you know that?), because if it depends on this new generation, there will only be talking cars from movies and toys.

[RandomUser17]

I won't bother from now on. Have a good one.

[Paul Spain]

More lame excuses. This is tiring... Honestly, I'm going to find a way to try to find the contacts of the old modders, who never refused to meet my requests (at least 50 cars that are posted on NFSCars were born from my orders, did you know that?), because if it depends on this new generation, there will only be talking cars from movies and toys.

I know how ya feel BUT getting pissed gets no where with them, People doing this have a job they go to and do this in their free time (unless you're lucky enough to find some genius IQ kid or teen but then they too have school so freetime is still limited. I once tried modeling on my own using ZModeler 1.07B and followed the tutorial but it never worked for me, After numerous fails I finally gave up, No one has made a easier to use program for modeling yet so I just use what models I find and if high poly as hell can reduce them sometimes using either 3DS Max 2026 or Atangeo Balancer. Another thing irks me is the lack of good tracks now, Someone needs to convert Moscow from Test Drive 5 or even better if possible the one in  GAI Street Challenge (Racers VS Police in U.S.) It's a totally free game and it reminds me of NFS HighStakes but with shitty riced Russkie cars.

[Paul Spain]

Ok, I just checked the attempt at reviving NFS Cars, Must say I'm impressed  . Now we don't have to tediously pick though 163GB to find stuff as they have restored the ordering..I reccomend grabbing everything you wanted from it before it's gone again (damn greedy ISPs and their shit) I'm grabbing long lost stuff now.