Oh cool! Didn't know there was a forum with an actual dev from AC talking with the users, this will be better than asking cramped questions through twitter.
Since this thread is about how the cars are made in AC, I'd like to know more about the limitations, for example:
Is it possible to have vehicles with more than 4 wheels?
Hopefully, possibly, not yet, dunno, will see. Made some amazing and you'll convince Stefano to program it sooner.
Is it possible for vehicles to have tuning options? (ie. be able to change parts of the cars, like spoiler, wheels or tires)
In the case of tuning being possible, can different parts change the behavior of the car? Like, changing the engine from a V6 to a V8 makes the car go faster and have more torque, etc.
Right now, while we talk, there is no such possibility. We create different folders with the same car copy&pasted and changed slightly if we want to reproduced something like this...
BUT
We haven't finished yet programming that part. There are thoughts about it, but also depends on the licensing contracts. So right now the reply I can give you is:
I don't know yet. I hope yes, but that's all I can say.
The radial blur on the wheels, is it baked or happens automatically?
Baked.
Do the cars in AC (will?) have visual damage? (Or even mechanical damage?)
Hopefully some visual damage for v1.0 release. Surely mechanical damage for v1.0
The car animations, like suspension, front wheels, etc, are they made in the modeling program and then exported to the AC's SDK or are they made inside the SDK?
Not an expert on this part, but as far as I know, AC now supports IK solutions from the modeling programs. So you can do whatever animation you like and then import them in AC. Can't tell you more on that though, as I'm ignorant in the matter.
Oh yeah, I'm very impressed by that Solidworks video, never knew it could do that so "easily". Gotta try it.
If I'm correct Solidworks models in nurbs surfaces and that doesn't give you very good control over the number or the form of the polygons created... but I might be wrong, haven't even watched the video.
Last but not less important. I confirm again the need to export in .fbx and then import to or gfx editor for shader assignments ecc. The gfx AC editor uses the same game engine, so what you see in there, is what you will see inside the game.
Unfortunately, I don't think we are going to release the mod gfx editor with the first "technology preview". This because we are still working on it and it would be bad for you and for us to release something and then make you work from scratch again for the final release, because we changed something in the editor.
I hope though we will be able to release a pdf with at least the most important instructions on how you need to work to create mods for AC.