I decided to put my newly acquired Blender skills to the test by having a go at make a vehicle for use in game. I tried to take account of the fact that the prop would be reused for non-interactive scene dressing, so It's not the highest poly model. I'll likely do much higher quality models for the hero vehicles in the game - especially as I have a plan for a mechanic that allows players to sleep in abandoned cars.
I went through a lot of trial an error trying to figure out how to make the components of the car interactive when in game. I ended up exporting separate meshes of the doors / body / wheels into Unreal, then using a blueprint to unite the all. The blueprint allows me to use the car model as a static prop. I can set the doors to be left open or shut, turn the front wheels and I went the extra mile and programmed a line trace that, once you've positioned the car body, will find the ground and position the wheels accordingly. This helps give the impression that the car is sitting on its suspension in an irregular way.
