With notification of replies to the thread "the flared creamsicle' choking up my inbox for 3 weeks now, I've been prompted to making the 'configurator' I've been thinking about that uses a photo of a 3/4 view instead of the vector drawing side view that those things always use.

I've included a lot of options including paint finish (matte/ gloss), ride height, early and late as well as a 916 bumper. It is sweet to see in a 3/4 view what the car looks like with and without flares - that was the hardest part. I've got options so far for painted sails, vinyl sails, textured black targa, painted targa, 916 top, and also a no roof option. The roof as well as the sails and the bumper I've got an option to make them a secondary color (primary and secondary colors you have to choose from 1 of the 36 available stock colors). I've got a few badges done. Currently just gasburners, but I've got some fuchs ready to go on and I plan to do steelies, rivs, deep fuchs, 4 lug gasburners, 2.0 fuchs, and pedrinis. There are some mirror options: stock, 911, and the monacle from the 8. It's minor in the shot but will do option for 1 or 2 mirrors. Also, Euro taillights or us; working on option for the 'wart'. Anyway, I'd planned on finishing the color change on the rocker panel and an option of a PORSCHE decal and the option to color it. I should be ready to post a beta maybe tonight maybe tomorrow night. I'm working on options for euro license plate, cali plate, and the ability to enter custom text. I had a cool idea that may take some playing with to be able to set the wheel offset on a slider.

The one thing I really need is a photo of an LE rear valence, as I've currently only got the cutout one, and can't find a good shot of any of the others at the angle I need. Can any one post a shot of a creamsicle orientated similarly to the shot below? I can skew and rotate and distort a similar pic to work but need it about the size below and close to the camera angle.

Very cool; I can't wait to play with the different configurations. Thanks.

Looking forward to it!

Are any of these images usable?

I did try that believe it or not
This is the best of them

But it's pretty blurry and dark and small. It looks a lot like the one on the blue car? Is it that the front 1 is different but the back is the same shape?

Here are two ..... not really the same angle however.

Can you add a Sepia brown to the configurator?

Thanks! That is awesome, the 2nd one.

About the valance, it looks the same as the one above though that one looks a bit 'worked' to conform to the flare. Is it that there are only 2 stock early rear valences? I've got "the snowplow" on my car but it's disassembled currently. If anyone has a pic of that in similar angle of the 'hole-through' valance, that would be awesome. It would be great to have that as an option.

I can use the smaller exhaust as an option also as I only got the banana muffler from the other pic presently so I'll have the 4 and the 6 option. The black 2.0 badge will be useful, too along with the tits.

Are those rightly called 'bumper guards'? The other seems a bit out of place. I've got my work cut out for me to add all I need to make an LE car. I will post a link soon. Thanks again, dlkawashima.

Great idea!!! I can't wait to see the configurator ....

I've got in it currently all the colors on the first page of this site
http://members.rennlist.com/chuxter/914colors.htm

There's a matrix of additional cost colors that I don't have, as they don't list names, and it did take forever to cut and paste the name number and convert the rgb codes listed there to hex to make the arrays for 36 even.

I was considering making an option where you could enter in a hexidecimal value to make the primary or secondary color anything you'd want. Originally I'd envisioned sliders to affect hue, lightness, and saturation, but it got tricky, the coding and I went with swatches. Finding hex values isn't very intuitive, I'll think about how I could fit that in.

Can't wait to see it and use it.. Can you add positive and negative stripes?

This is a great idea. I've been thinking I'd like to do the same thing with the "flared creamsicle" thread image. I assume you already know how to make the actual configurator? If you'd be willing to help me make the actual configurator, I'd be glad to provide images based on the other pic.

Alrighty then, I've finally got it in some shape to post a link.

914 Configurator

I won't go into all the things I had trouble with or point out all the flaws as is my inclination. Keep in mind it is still very fresh, so it may be buggy. I styled it to look like the old school vw literature. I've yet still to get placement of the type below perfectly. Again, it is very...wrinkly presently, but still lots of fun.

I'm thinking the only 'easy' way to do it to another set of photos would be to take the shots all at the same angles. A lot of the insane work that I put into it was in getting pieces to fit. It was like an easier version of actually bringing a real car to life, to look for 'the part' then prep it. A lot of use of outlining. Because all the cars I used were at slightly off angles it is sometimes weird. Like the late bumper looks really fish-eyed. I I were to set out to fix stuff like that it would be with shots I'd taken of cars all with the same lighting, etc. For just a color change on 1 photo, that would be easier, but still got to use the pen tool. I used flash and photoshop, a little of illustrator just to get the outlines to make the vector shapes in flash. I coded everything myself in actionscript. It took me probably 30 hours over 3-4 days.

So far its awesome!!!

I dont understand the image uploader thing..

Awesome!

Are the grayed-out boxes things that are still being developed? (such as other wheel types)

Is it helpful for us to report bugs here?

how do you rotate the car?

Thanks man , this is great !!!!!!

Jack / Jaxdream

Wow, this is really cool. Nice work

FANTASTIC!!!!! I get to see what my car will look like with flares, 911 mirrors and 916 bumper in Dephi Green.

I was having doubts about its looks. I think that I'll need to go with color matched sail panels.

Keep up the great work. Can't wait till youget the other "buttons" finished.

Yeah, it takes awhile to iron out problems, so not everything works yet. I've got a huge list of things to fix and add. I see I forgot to grey the positive decal.

I see how the no roof option of the flared body the other roof still there, and the valence should not be clickable when the 916 bumper is on. I'm going to 'even out' the chrome early bumper for when it's painted. I see a glitch in the color of the bumpers when switching between 916, something with the toggle.

but yeah, if you see something. Hopefully it will be more seamless in the next few days. Also if something really bothers you let me know. I've got to fix the gap between the 916 bumper and body. or if I've mis-labeled something. I almost called the front spoiler a front valance? I see how on the sails it says 'colormatched' and should be 'primary color' for consistency. -lots to work out yet.

I will get to the positive stripes tonight. I want to make an inverted bumblebee with it.

by 'image address' I mean something like

http://www.zastavki.com/pictures/1600x1200...oad_005335_.jpg

If you right click any image in your browser and hit 'copy image url' or 'open in new window'/tab and then copy the url from your browser's address bar. Like copy and paste that url into the input textbox, hit 'load' and it should in a second or so load the image into the background of the car. I will add a slider to control the size of the image. I just thought of that background image thing last night.

yeah, right

That would be nice, but it's not really 3d. The original plan was to have 2 views, but it takes too long to make 1 view work. Version 2.0, if I took the photos I might try that. But rotating, no.

Very nice. I certainly appreciate the amount of work involved to put this together.

AMAZING! I was only expecting something like this:
http://www.busselecta.com/

Under the Porsche section there is a 914 option.

I already have done one like the Busselecta but with less errors ... But it is still vector drawing and not based on a photography http://club914.fr/914blueprint.swf

Thanks, I'm glad you like it!
Hopefully, Johannes, you do not mind that I used yours for some inspiration. Definitely a step up from the selecta one that barely works. I was thinking I would change the name since configurator is what yours is called, and it is maybe not a word.

I do think the 3/4 and the bitmap gives a sense of depth and realism that makes it quite useful as a tool for visualization.

Johannes, that is a much better selecta. It is nice to have all of these things to mess with

Couple of issues I noticed.

Again its really awesome what you did! Just want to help!

1.RR tire not there when you lift the body
2. gap between 916 bumper and body
3. front bumper doesnt change
4. targa top becomes "saratoga top" with flares

Thanks again!!

Excellent work!! I love it !! Thank you so much!!!!!!

Instant classic! You've done a real service to the whole 914 community with this.

Of course I have to add my $.02. I was going to mention the color distortion on the bumper when selecting primary or secondary color but you mentioned you're working on that - excellent. The shadow lighting on the side of the body is also fairly harsh, especially on the lighter colors. The trim line at the base of the sails should disappear when the primary color is selected for the sails.

Thanks for your effort.

Thanks, man. Yeah, need to work on the front bumpers, the 916 and the late. Also the regular valence is not there at all sort of or it's shorter than it should be. Is that the name for it, 'regular'?

I can fix the other stuff there pretty quick once I'm at it tonight.



Point taken on the harsh lighting. There is less versatility with how it's made than when doing it in photoshop. It is a vector shape over top of the b&w bitmap. That shape gets changed in color through the code and affects what's below with an 'overlay' transfer mode. There aren't quite as many options as PS and I want to keep it to every color being the same way to produce the effect. If I alter the vector shape for the color to not include the trunk lid gap it should make it somewhat better.

For the sail trim, the greyed-out 'trim' option will add/delete the trim. That's something I will work on tonight, as it makes a big difference in effect, keeping it or not.

Thanks again, guys for your help and encouragement. It takes awhile to get all the features implemented. I will keep on. I do need a bit of a rest on working on my real car.

That is fantastic! Well done

Can't wait to see the options grow!

Absolutely cool. This is a great tool I like. Thanks

Finally it's coming together. Enough to post an update and the new link. I'd updated yesterday with some changes, but maybe caches need clearing? It is a new link now

914 Visualizer

I renamed it - seemed appropriate and easy. I've fixed all the big issues from before. Still some glitches in the bumpers. Evened out the body shading and seems all around. Added some wheels, sail trim option. Check out the jack stand option

There is still the wheels colors to do, and the 4 lug wheels for that matter. The wheel offset slider will be sweet but not yet. I'll have to make the background scale from the middle. The slider is however working and it being a swf dile instead of html it opens so a back ground image can fill the screen. -edit that made it scale down. I'll have to do that later )

Try cutting and pasting this one in and scaling it up. (I will have to make it start at maximum scale as it goes to the middle presently). Copy and paste the url below into the 'background image' box and hit load. It is big so it takes a few seconds. (make preloader?)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm..._grandstand.jpg

SUPERB!!!

This is what I want mine to look like (nearly there) :cheers:

Awesome update!!!

I love the jack stands!!! So cool

Nice work!

I didn't read every bit of this thread. Is it just me? THere are some colors that just don't do anything. Wait a sec... primary vs. secondary color. Maybe I should rtfm.

You are the man!!!
This is fantastic.

Nathan,

I reckon you have hit on a money making idea here.. Convert this into an ap for the iphone, do it for various makes of vehicle and sell it on the iphone app store for 99c, I reckon you'd sell thousands.

I only ask for 30%

The reflection in the rear-view mirror does not reflect the change in the cars color

It just gets better and better.

Now that is cool!

I did my light ivory 914 flared, steel top etc. Looked cool.

HEY! That's my car!!!

I thought about that. I haven't got a smart phone. My phone is stupid.
I know iPhones won't run flash files, swf's, but I've heard about converters to make it into javacript. I'll look into it when I've got a phone to test it on. I have had people all asking me how hard it would be to do a different car. It's a lot of rotoscoping or outlining pen tool stuff though.

I'll be working on it through the weekend. I want to get to a 'done' point so I can get back to my car!

many thanks again for all the encouragement. I've still got a list of things like a page long to implement. That mirror reflection thing is on my short list!

This is really great stuff!
I came into this posting late so I didn't see if my question was previously addressed. Sorry if it's redundant.
Are you planning to include a rotate feature to be able to configure a 3/4 front view? That would really be awesome!
Keep up the great work.

That would be very very difficult!!! This has been done from photos, it isn't a vectored drawing, the next stage would be a vector, which would be rotatable etc, but your talking hours and hours of work. I take my hat off to him for doing this, I think it's awesome.

I want coloured Fuchs (the whole inside and also with polished petals) and I noticed that you can't go back to a chrome bumper after you select a colour.

You have also forgot the oil these things always leak onto your lovely shiny garage floor!!!


I see an avatar craze on the horizon!!!

Should there be an option for "no wheels" when the car is on jack stands?
How about painted wheels? (at least for LE cars)

Great job!

Great work!