Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Assetto Corsa is an incredible modding platform, and RaceDepartment user @Ben O'Bro continues to maximise it with another great Caterham mod for the simulation...
For anyone not familiar with Ben's work as an Assetto Corsa modder, I would strongly recommend you head over to our download section and check out one (or all five) of his Caterham mods, each of which has such a unique feel and life of their own, confidently providing a really positive and satisfying driving experience in the simulation.
Not content to call time on his mission to recreate this little British brand of sports racer in AC, Ben has very recently pushed live yet another new car in the form of the track racing special 420r, a dedicated race car and a perfect example of what the Caterham brand stands for since its inception with the legendary "7" back in the early 1970's.
You can download the Caterham 420r V0.7 mod Here.
Sadly for Ben, the creation of the 420r hasn't gone quite as originally planned... with work having taken a considerable hit thanks to the loss of over six months worth of development courtesy of a hard drive failure in recent days. Having lost so much time and work already put into the mod, and the motivation drop that goes with such a setback, Ben has taken the decision to release the car in an "as is" state, reverting to a build that existed earlier in the year.
Now don't be fooled, this doesn't mean that the Caterham 420r is a half finished project, far from it in fact. Despite the setback caused by the data loss, this mod is still an exceptionally polished and impressive bit of work from Ben. Hopefully the universally positive reception received since being made available for download will help Ben to recover some of his lost motivation, and set the prolific modder on track to pick back up and progress this car to an even higher level than it is at already.
So, what does @Ben O'Bro have to say of his latest creation:
Light is right!
I owned a Caterham Super Sprint several years ago, (the full story can be found here) I started to model it since I had the car in my garage next door. Took me few years to complete. I don't know why so long! I've done paid cars that took less than a week... it was my Sunday activity on rainy days, and given I was in Cyprus with the least rainy days of all Europe, maybe that's why it took some time! Completing the car bolt by bolt almost. I even started the engine which I never really finished. Maybe useful for AC2 … I then sold the car when i left to work in Switzerland.
A few DLC after Assetto Corsa was released, and with no sign of licensing, I decided it was time to recreate what I missed so much, my good old yellow 1700cc! I had so much fun and feelings driving it, I thought it would be nice to try and recreate it, a nice tribute! And sharing with the community what it's like.
The model was almost finished, but not game ready at all. How complicated could it be ?
Oh boy... after the few years it took for the initial 3D, I probably added another 100 hours to bring it in Assetto. A lot of research to understand the mechanics of car modding, as well as editing the mesh to make it more suitable, making the textures, mapping and so on. Quite an adventure to make a car from scratch in AC !
RD forums and its community has been super helpful with all my beginners question. I must say I would have probably given up without a forum like this...
The first time I finally managed to have an empty shell with flying body and the game didn't crash was quite an accomplishment! From that moment on, it was only fun, testing maps and material, slowly completing the export until it was fully ready to be shared.
I tried to work the sound with fonsecker tutorial and YouTube videos, this took time, and the result for the 1700 isn't so good, I mean people complained to me several times. For me since I made it from nothing and spending so much time, I have to bare with it. As a result I decided it was best to take Kunos car sounds for the next releases!
In other news I recently bought (again?!) a Caterham 1700ss from 1988 this time, so I might give a new try at making sound, this time with my actual recording! It's so noisy and mesmerising when you hit the gas, I wish I could get this properly done this time!
Regarding the 3D aspect of the model, that was pretty easy, being my every day job, it was an extra exercise to make the car, and measuring the real parts from mine. Finding a good base for blueprint was a bit more difficult. I think the overall result is pretty acceptable. Lot of objects could use more improvement mesh wise, but the car is still a lot lighter in polygon than a regular one.
Modding has to remain fun, and cleaning an old model you did many years ago isn't!
About the physics now. Luckily, when I started posting pictures here on RD of the early Seven in-game (the 1700 at the time), I got a message from JackCY who said he was working on improved physics for the old Academy from Kamil. So from that day on, I let Jack take care of all the physics of the car. Lot of research went into it. Forums and car owners, some racers in UK gave some data and ideas. I contacted Caterham but never got any word from them! I contacted Bilstein to get some info regarding suspensions, still silent to this day. I do think it's a matter of timing and asking the right person. I am sure there are interested people, passionate, within any brand that would be willing to help such a project.
So it's been a quest to get data on some aspects. Jack did a very good job on the 1700. Calculating the aero using some Nasa aerodynamics that I wouldn't have gone through in a million years!
Once the 1700 was ready, I took the physics to make the 2017 Academy. I was in contact with the winner from 2017 academy championship Mister French! He gave me nice pictures and references for his car, very helpful.
In the meantime ltcars came with physics for a 165, with turbocharged 3 cylinders 660cc, we fine-tuned it with a friend of mine to release it, it took me a week to convert my 1700 model into a 165 ! With new rims and smaller wheel arch, and some elements of the Academy I was still working on at the time. It was so cool to suddenly have a new Caterham model in the game list. So why stop there?
In parallel of the Academy I was starting a street version of the 420R, probably eager to put more power on the car, slowly taking the improvement of the academy over the 1700 and using it in a new model, and the new learnt things about modding in general (vibrating objects, more advanced materials, lights and masks etc.).
I somehow left the street version aside and made the race one when I got contact with DPR in UK who provided a bit of data, pictures and funding.
They asked if they could get a bare model with no door nor chassis for their own use, and from that I thought it would be cool to actually release a model as such, which became the fantasy R500 roadster after a week work on it!
The 420R was still waiting on some physics improvement when I burnt two hard drives, losing some work on the process... but luckily the SSD survived with AC folder and the recent exports I made. I decided before losing any more, it was time to release it for people to enjoy, enough waiting, and after all the model was pretty neat.
It's funny my fried HD became kinda famous around RD
I just gave it today to a company in order to get a quote. I didn't loose all the files, I have backup from about 6 month ago, just redoing some things aren't very motivating. I was a bit surprised seeing so much interest for the 420r, it is heart warming for sure, and most likely I'll try and fix the few mistakes and eventually reach a 1.0 version.
Other projects ?
LA Canyons of course that I got myself into to help Phoenix! Which has been really fun and challenging! Yet another aspect of modding.
Car wise, just before "the incident" I was working on a Lotus 7 1967 race specs that I really fancied.
I'd like to finished all my mods to 1.0 to be done with it. It's been comfortable working on something that's almost ready, and that I can just tweak and improve and decline into new models... Starting a new car from scratch is a bit scary for some reasons, but I'd really like to make one of those Singer 911. Additionally I'm interested in converting the Caterham for ACC, working with Unreal would be interesting, a new engine to get to know and master.
Winter is coming and who knows how i'll keep my long evenings busy!
I owned a Caterham Super Sprint several years ago, (the full story can be found here) I started to model it since I had the car in my garage next door. Took me few years to complete. I don't know why so long! I've done paid cars that took less than a week... it was my Sunday activity on rainy days, and given I was in Cyprus with the least rainy days of all Europe, maybe that's why it took some time! Completing the car bolt by bolt almost. I even started the engine which I never really finished. Maybe useful for AC2 … I then sold the car when i left to work in Switzerland.
A few DLC after Assetto Corsa was released, and with no sign of licensing, I decided it was time to recreate what I missed so much, my good old yellow 1700cc! I had so much fun and feelings driving it, I thought it would be nice to try and recreate it, a nice tribute! And sharing with the community what it's like.
The model was almost finished, but not game ready at all. How complicated could it be ?
Oh boy... after the few years it took for the initial 3D, I probably added another 100 hours to bring it in Assetto. A lot of research to understand the mechanics of car modding, as well as editing the mesh to make it more suitable, making the textures, mapping and so on. Quite an adventure to make a car from scratch in AC !
RD forums and its community has been super helpful with all my beginners question. I must say I would have probably given up without a forum like this...
The first time I finally managed to have an empty shell with flying body and the game didn't crash was quite an accomplishment! From that moment on, it was only fun, testing maps and material, slowly completing the export until it was fully ready to be shared.
I tried to work the sound with fonsecker tutorial and YouTube videos, this took time, and the result for the 1700 isn't so good, I mean people complained to me several times. For me since I made it from nothing and spending so much time, I have to bare with it. As a result I decided it was best to take Kunos car sounds for the next releases!
In other news I recently bought (again?!) a Caterham 1700ss from 1988 this time, so I might give a new try at making sound, this time with my actual recording! It's so noisy and mesmerising when you hit the gas, I wish I could get this properly done this time!
Regarding the 3D aspect of the model, that was pretty easy, being my every day job, it was an extra exercise to make the car, and measuring the real parts from mine. Finding a good base for blueprint was a bit more difficult. I think the overall result is pretty acceptable. Lot of objects could use more improvement mesh wise, but the car is still a lot lighter in polygon than a regular one.
Modding has to remain fun, and cleaning an old model you did many years ago isn't!
About the physics now. Luckily, when I started posting pictures here on RD of the early Seven in-game (the 1700 at the time), I got a message from JackCY who said he was working on improved physics for the old Academy from Kamil. So from that day on, I let Jack take care of all the physics of the car. Lot of research went into it. Forums and car owners, some racers in UK gave some data and ideas. I contacted Caterham but never got any word from them! I contacted Bilstein to get some info regarding suspensions, still silent to this day. I do think it's a matter of timing and asking the right person. I am sure there are interested people, passionate, within any brand that would be willing to help such a project.
So it's been a quest to get data on some aspects. Jack did a very good job on the 1700. Calculating the aero using some Nasa aerodynamics that I wouldn't have gone through in a million years!
Once the 1700 was ready, I took the physics to make the 2017 Academy. I was in contact with the winner from 2017 academy championship Mister French! He gave me nice pictures and references for his car, very helpful.
In the meantime ltcars came with physics for a 165, with turbocharged 3 cylinders 660cc, we fine-tuned it with a friend of mine to release it, it took me a week to convert my 1700 model into a 165 ! With new rims and smaller wheel arch, and some elements of the Academy I was still working on at the time. It was so cool to suddenly have a new Caterham model in the game list. So why stop there?
In parallel of the Academy I was starting a street version of the 420R, probably eager to put more power on the car, slowly taking the improvement of the academy over the 1700 and using it in a new model, and the new learnt things about modding in general (vibrating objects, more advanced materials, lights and masks etc.).
I somehow left the street version aside and made the race one when I got contact with DPR in UK who provided a bit of data, pictures and funding.
They asked if they could get a bare model with no door nor chassis for their own use, and from that I thought it would be cool to actually release a model as such, which became the fantasy R500 roadster after a week work on it!
The 420R was still waiting on some physics improvement when I burnt two hard drives, losing some work on the process... but luckily the SSD survived with AC folder and the recent exports I made. I decided before losing any more, it was time to release it for people to enjoy, enough waiting, and after all the model was pretty neat.
It's funny my fried HD became kinda famous around RD
I just gave it today to a company in order to get a quote. I didn't loose all the files, I have backup from about 6 month ago, just redoing some things aren't very motivating. I was a bit surprised seeing so much interest for the 420r, it is heart warming for sure, and most likely I'll try and fix the few mistakes and eventually reach a 1.0 version.
Other projects ?
LA Canyons of course that I got myself into to help Phoenix! Which has been really fun and challenging! Yet another aspect of modding.
Car wise, just before "the incident" I was working on a Lotus 7 1967 race specs that I really fancied.
I'd like to finished all my mods to 1.0 to be done with it. It's been comfortable working on something that's almost ready, and that I can just tweak and improve and decline into new models... Starting a new car from scratch is a bit scary for some reasons, but I'd really like to make one of those Singer 911. Additionally I'm interested in converting the Caterham for ACC, working with Unreal would be interesting, a new engine to get to know and master.
Winter is coming and who knows how i'll keep my long evenings busy!
Available to download HERE and despite "only" being at version 0.7 and HDD crashes aside, this is a superb car and something of a must for any fan of the light weight, low powered racing car variety.
The car looks, and more importantly feels, like a superb recreation of what is an iconic motorsport brand. I love it!
Please, if you download a mod here at RaceDepartment, spare a thought for the modders who put in such incredible work for us to enjoy. Leave a comment and rating for the mod, and let those responsible for continuing to bring us such entertainment know how you feel about their work.
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So then, what do you think of it? Leave a comment below!
Like what you see here at RaceDepartment? Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow us on social media!
So then, what do you think of it? Leave a comment below!
