Car-rigging Discussion

[Dave Black]

Woot!

Good one, Aaron. Can't wait to see where it goes.

Not really rigging, but just a thing to think about.

Reactor. Using a dynamics engine to simulate the car's physics.
Could be cool. At least in part.

I've also seen plugins for Max designed just for rigging and animating cars. Has anyone used it? Know what it's called? I'll have to go check digimation.

Anyway. Just a few ideas.

This is gonna rock.

-3DZ

:D

[Aaron Moore]

Ok, several questions:

Is there anyway to get automatic damper effects possibly using soemthing like the flex modifier? That would totally kick to be able to use that to get a bit of a bounce to the vehicle...

What ideas do you have for limiting the vertical movement of the vehicles body from each of the wheels...

I'm thinking that some kind of spring system would be great... but the question is how do you make it interact with 4 points!!!

possibly a script based approach?

Anyone done anykind of script based collision detection?

[Dave Black]

What would the input methods be for this setup? Are we talking laydown a spline? Are we talking play with some values in a script, or would you move the car with a joystick?

It's been done. Starship Troopers(movie) had people actually flying the ships to get the animation more realistic.

With max's built-in motion capture utilities, that could be an option.

It would be a piece of cake to make a car drop from the ceiling and react properly. Forward motion would'nt seem too hard.

The hardpart, to me, would be steering it. That would have to be done with a script. I think.

It'd be cool to script the forward motion of the car to emmit particles for dust and water FX. Just a thought.

I know I have the equasion for wheel roll lying around...

Hmmmm...

-3DZ

:D

[Viper]

To create realistic movement on a car, no matter what you think, you'll need to use scripts. The physics must be correctly done, or you'll get really wierd results.

*Hopes to be able to make that in 5 years after graduating on Physics at college*

[Dave Black]

Well, are'nt we re-inventing the wheel(no pun intended)a bit?

Most of the really high-end and best selling racecar video games out there have an accurate 4-point physics model. I know it's hard, but it's not impossible.

-3DZ

:D

[Aaron Moore]

Ok, I've been playing around with the rig a little. Was wondering... I have 2 points the hub and the wheel... is there a way to use max scripting to do the following:

max_stretch = 5;
max_compress = 3;

if( distance(point_hub,point_wheel) > max_stretch )
{
point_hub = inherit point_wheel translation;
}
else if( distance(point_hub,point_wheel) < max_compression )
{
point_hub = inherit point_wheel translation;
}


Also it would be cool if I could calculate the change in distance so that depending on the rate of change, I could do some damping effects.

[Aaron Moore]

Something simple... it would be fine to control the values via a slider or something...

The key issue is like turning and such which affect things like turning radius and also how the rear tires follow...

mainly things like suspension effects should be automated, like with sticky feet so the tires stick to the ground, etc

[Aaron Moore]

Originally posted by 3DZealot
Well, are'nt we re-inventing the wheel(no pun intended)a bit?

Most of the really high-end and best selling racecar video games out there have an accurate 4-point physics model. I know it's hard, but it's not impossible.

-3DZ

:D

Well could we write a simple 4 point translation in maxscript?

[Viper]

It's more complicated then that. You have to take into account the weight that the car has, and the forces that act on the car. Well, for animation anyway....But that's what you wish right?

[Dave Black]

But what I'm saying, is that reactor has all those physics built in. Why try to write that? It has contraints built in to hook stuff together with springs and tension, and of course, as a physics simulation tool, it has weight, density, gravity, etc. Hell, it even has a car simulation type. It's primitive, but it's there to be played with.

The motion of the steering wheel could move the tires by way of a reactor controler(just plain max, not the plugin). Turn the wheel 30 degrees, the tires move either directly to it, or by an equation.

Just some thoughts.

-3DZ

:D

[Error404]

In my animation class, my instructor said that he was going to help/show me how to rig my K5 blazer. It has bit of a lift on it, and I'm going to try to get more than just the body roll down, I'd like to get all the suspension parts to work properly... if it goes good I'll try to remember to post up some tips/info from what he told me!

[Dave Black]

That's awsome. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Think you could post some of your tips and trick from what you are learning as you are learning them?

-3DZ

:D

[Shadowsdancing]

Error404

I was wondering...where do you go to school?? The colleges around here do't offer anything resembling animation classes...
I was thinking about an online college because of that...

[Aaron Moore]

It's more complicated then that. You have to take into account the weight that the car has, and the forces that act on the car. Well, for animation anyway....But that's what you wish right?

Originally posted by 3DZealot
But what I'm saying, is that reactor has all those physics built in. Why try to write that? It has contraints built in to hook stuff together with springs and tension, and of course, as a physics simulation tool, it has weight, density, gravity, etc. Hell, it even has a car simulation type. It's primitive, but it's there to be played with.

The motion of the steering wheel could move the tires by way of a reactor controler(just plain max, not the plugin). Turn the wheel 30 degrees, the tires move either directly to it, or by an equation.


Quite right... I am hoping to use the tools in max to build a Not-So-Complex-But-Still-Useful vehicle rig for doing all kinds of vehicle animation.

I am gonna, for now, say line driven... because timing and such become a bitch with trying to use the input devices....

For now, the issue is rigging the body to the base... so that the body is free to move within limits and the tires stick to the whole group (with basic suspension effects) as you drag the vehicle around...

[Aaron Moore]

I'm trying to use the damper as a link on the suspension... I would like to setup a link so that as I pull the body up, it will keep the tires where they are until the maximum expansion of the damper... at which point the tire objects will move up... Also I would to use it for compression as well...

The idea is i'm trying to kind of get "sticky tires" which stick to the ground...

How do I link the damper to the mesh so that it has that kind of an effect?

Could someone point me to some character rig tutorials that I might check out. Thanks

This is what the damer setup looks like... I just need to setup the links so that as the body moves away, the tire will get pulled after the damer "stretches" to its maximum extent.

http://www.vi2.com/getFile/75685.gif

happy maxing

[Aaron Moore]

Does anyone have a tutorial on setting up stick feet (for like animation where the feet stick to the ground unless the upper bone is stretched) and also a tutorial on sliding joints?

I'd like to refer to both for some reference... thanks

[gaggle]

the issue is rigging the body to the base... so that the body is free to move within limits and the tires stick to the whole group (with basic suspension effects) as you drag the vehicle around

Just a quick ponder Aaron, I may totally off-base: But are you saying you want to be able to control the chassis of the car, with the wheels following? Maybe that's not at all what you wrote, sorry if I'm misinterpreting. I'm just thinking that to get proper vehicle-movement you'd want a dummy-object (a "Car" helper object) of sorts to link up to a path, then have wheels following that, with the chassis on top of the wheels.

Maybe that's exactly what you meant though, I'm not sure.


A more general question, for a bit of discussion perhaps: What is the intended use for the car-simulation? If we were to go with the car being constrained to a path, how would one define if it needs to be screeching around this corner, slowing down at the other.. or even turning to sharply as to flip over, thus going completly off the path..

Making it completly free-form doesn't seem to neccessairly hold all the answers either. For instance, as Aaron mentions, timing becomes an issue.

I'd like a way to get a car moving that allowed for both these situations:
Cars on a freeway or a car offroad or whatever, driving along where you know where it's going and such. Best example I can come up with right now would be some random Honda commerical with the car driving off into the sunset.

But I'd also like to be able to have a car, and then flicking it with a gigantic finger, seeing it flip and roll over. Or drive it off a cliff and letting physics do the rest. An example there would be an action sequence?.. (or in the case of the finger, a Monty Python remake? :).

Is that way too much to ask? Maybe I've misunderstood the thread-topic, that was just what I thought would be soooo damn handy.
Don't misunderstand my suggestions here as some wishful thinking of a plugin that does eeeverything I mentioned perfectly without having to work for it. It doesn't have to automatically be able to throw cars off cliffs and such, as long as it just doesn't prevent me from archiving that. Like, say, if this theoretical plugin's workflow worked with the ability to snapshot the car right as it passes the edge of the cliff, well that's great, we can hide the simulated car, and go full-on rigidbody Reactor on it for the fall itself. Etc etc.


Idunno.. see where I'm getting at?

[DIMO]

You might want to check out this:

www.newplugins.com

This guy has written a vehicle simulator for max that has many features. Our company has a lot of car stuff to animate so we bought it and tried to use it on our projects. But we always ended up in good old keyframe animation. Simulating all the stuff just takes too long till you get the desired effect. You can spend a week tweaking the parameteres of the simulation until you get an effect that an animator keyframes in two days.

Once we even wrote an importer to take original simulation data of a big german carmanufacturer into max (They wanted it to be accurate ...) And then the Art Director said "Could we make it swing a little less?" There's no point to say "Hey, that's original simulation data" You just have to change it .(We again ended up with keyframing)

[gaggle]

Yeah DIMO, that sounds like a good point. Fun fact of the day: the same, IMO, goes for Realflow, the water simulation plugin. It's horribly slow, and you always end up wanting to change something more or less tiny, only changing the result is horribly slow and hard, because, hey, the water is simulated.. all you can do is change the start-parameters...

So yeah, all-out car-simulation is not neccessairly the best workflow in the world. Personally I quite despise the idea of being locked into that trap again.

Then there's keyframing.. it works I'm sure, but it's gotta be tedious to animate all the subtle chassis-movements? The way tires spin and shake when they loose grip for a second.. it's certainly a lot to keep track of, and maybe something could be added to alleviate the animators from that task?

A thought comes to mind.. a.. a hypothetical interface that might work. Or maybe not. I'll just throw it out here and see if others finds these sort of "imagine how it could be" things interesting:
Okay so you're animating a car-dummy around, you'd be rotating the front wheels, making sure not to drive the dummy far into the ground, or up so it takes off. It'd be the keyframing you're speaking of DIMO, so you get the weight of a car moving around, but without messing with the shocks of the chassis, or animating the shockabsorbers, or anything like that. Just the basic car-movement.
Then you run The Plugin™, and it matches the wheels with the movement of the dummy. Then it matches the chassis to the wheels. That could give you the tiny vibrations and shock-absorbtions and such by way of simulation, without giving up the ability to keyframe the basic movements?
If you want more vibration as it, say, goes offroad, reset the simulation, and animate the Rough Surface (or whatever :)) parameter so it jolts up at the right time. Rerun the simulation, and now the car starts vibrating more as it hits the rocky ground. Depending on the settings of the Shock Absorbance Quality parameter :) If it's a four-wheel offroad car, the wheels would just shake I suppose, the chassis staying flat. A sort of "bumpmap" for the simulator, so you wouldn't have to model in all kinds of nasty details geometrically.

Just a thought.. idunno.. lots more to detail out of course, and many pitfalls in that idea I'm sure, but that's why I keep repeating it's just a thought :rolleyes:

Btw I'm all for the idea of simulating the wheels and chassis and whatnot through Reactor. As it's been pointed out, it likely has all the physics-calculations anyone could ever dream of.

Anyway, I for one fear, as it seems DIMO does as well :), the idea of a hardcore vehicle-simulation. But maybe something inbetween could indeed be thought up.. something designed from the grounds-up to be used by animators, with an anxious art director right behind them asking for the tiny weird changes they always seem to be asking.

I hope I'm not derailing the topic by bringing in these theoretical "what if it was made like this" postings.

[Dave Black]

Hey Aaron, I just DLed the car model we are to be using for testing, and your scale is off.

It's no big deal to change it, but if we plan on using ANY physics on the model, the scale MUST be to real-work units.

The car right now is roughly 44' X 12' X 17'

That's going to make it act like a huge chunk of steel.

Just thought I'd alert you so you could change it.

-3DZ

:D

[Martin Andersen]

I'm in !

Good you started it. I've just fihgured out the rig for the car... setting it up now !!!

Then a Video tutorial later on :rolleyes:

[Martin Andersen]

Also think of the two wheels that drives the car... like the front of the wheels (those driven by the motor, kind of active wheels.)does also affect the car.

front/back breaking to !!

[DIMO]

Of course,
To use clever rigs, scripts and expressions to ease the work (rotation of the wheels, vibrations etc) is good. But in my opinion the overall movement of the chassis and the gear angle should be handanimated because, that's the parts you will have to change a lot.

And for the rotation of the wheels: We often change it to a hilarious value to make the motionblur look better and to avoid the stupid shutter effect ("Hey, the tyres are rotating in the wrong direction! - Ah, you know, that effect is called .... We'll change that")

If you are interested in carstuff you might want to check our site:

www.mackevision.de

[Aaron Moore]

gaggle: I'm totally with you on your control thing. I want to have control over the vheicle... the idea is just to automate the tedious tasks of trying to match up tires to the ground, getting them to roll right, stick to the ground, have suspension and secondary motion on the body, etc!....

Dimo: Thats why I want to setup a basic rig to assist in making keyframes...

3DZ: Thanks for pointing out the scale issue. I've never really worked with max units, so if it becomes an issue with any of the simulations I'll be sure to scale it down.


To clarify some issue. the goal isn't to crete one button which makes the tires role and drives a car on a path. The purpose of this project is to design a rig for a vehicle... one that can be used in animation.

So far things to consider are:
-having overrides to control wheel spin
-flexability for different driving styles...
-automation of secondary motion and other tedious task (while maintaing some overrides to have control over the style/scale of the effect)

When I said drive by moving the chassis, I ment that by controling the root of the vehcile one could quickly define the motion... the body would not be considered the chassie as the body is a freemoving object which has secondary motion controlling its behavior...

the goal right now is to link up the suspensioon to the chassie and tires... sticky tires...then we can work on rigging the body... each of these elements need to react to the movement the chassie experiences...

then the task after that would be implementing such things as turn radius and automation of wheel spin (with user overrides)

still looking for some character rigging tutorials... post a link if u know of a good one... i though it would be a good place to start looking at some methods for setting up rigs...

[Aaron Moore]

bumped

[gaggle]

I.. er.. I seem to remember the Reactor manual having stuff about how to use it in scripts? I mean, in the end, it would be terribly neat I think, if it's calculations could somehow be used transparently to get proper movements.

Also, I don't know if the source for SimCloth is free, but it certainly has its own dynamics, maybe something can be l33ch3d from that?

Oh and it seems likely there are free physics-engines around on the web somewhere.

At any rate, irregardless of all the physicsengine babble, I'm looking much forward to seeing peoples solutions to this. It would be massivly cool if something nice and useful could be cooked up in the end. Would be a sharp departure from thinking advanced rigging and solutions are something that belongs to the world of Maya and the likes. That's me that's gotten used to thinking that, I should mention. I'll only be too happy to see that old concept thrown out the window.

[Grayson]

Aaron: I'm not sure if you saw this on maxforums but I'll post it here just in case.

This is the theory behind my semi-working car rig. My big problem with this is that the car is hard wired to the ground; I haven't been able to get a reliable suspension into the mix yet. This is a great discussion so far.

http://grayson.cgworks.com/img_drop/car_rig.gif

[Martin Andersen]

have to drink today,so noy mutch max here.

[Aaron Moore]

Ok, for that vehicle rig thing i'm working on, I'd like to get some help writing a script to rotate an object based on 4 other points... the 4 points would define a plane and depending on the position of these 4 corners, i'd like to rotate an object so that it is aligned to them. Now I realize that some times it'll need to be a best fit...

Could anyone help me design such a alogorythm... it needs to be some sort of controller so that as the object moves it continously updates.... any ideas on where i should beging?

The parameters it would take would be 4 points (helpers probably) and it would calculate and rotate an object based on the 4 sample points...

Pehaps some of the maxscripters could lend me a hand.

[BrandonD]

Ever thought about using constraints instead? You can use a position constraint to keep an object a certain distance between several objects (animateable weight too) and an orientation constraint does similar things based on rotation naturally.

[Aaron Moore]

Ok I think I got the basic wheel set up... I need to get the body attached to the wheels... so i have 4 dummys as the suspension hubs right now... i'm thinking it would be best to setup an axel between the wheels as well but i don't know if thats too much at this point... i'm continously running into circular linkage errors :(

in order to setup a connection to the body i need to have the body orient to the 4 suspension hubs... 4 point rotation... any ideas???

I'll post the wips of the suspension using bones later tonight...

[Aaron Moore]

gotta look into that... i'm still relatively new to rigging and have not played with character rigging much either... only done work with bones for other mechenical setups...

thanks for the pointer i'll go look into it right now...

[Aaron Moore]

hmm just tried it... i'm having more luck with the look at constraint...

Whats the best way to link the target weights to the distance... (so that as an object gets futher, it is weighted more....)

[Aaron Moore]

ok... a little update...

heres a pic of my setup... i'm having trouble finding a method to average the difference.

http://www.vi2.com/getFile/79057.gif

given 4 corners, i need to rotate the dummy box so the coner of the box are closest to the target boxes...

any ideas?

[Aaron Moore]

Here is a little animation done with the 3rd version of the WIP vehicle rig. The break timings a bit off but thats my fault... not the rigs.

http://www.vi2.com/getFile/79263.avi

C&C please.

I would like to find a way to automate the sticky wheels to follow the topology of the ground.. i'm thinking about using a spline on the surface as the sticky wheel target but not sure how to get the timing of the target's pos synced up with the motion of the vehicle...

Also I need a way to do turning...

I'll post the rig file to vi2.com tomorrow

[BrandonD]

Looks very promising.

[Erka2]

"I would like to find a way to automate the sticky wheels to follow the topology of the ground.." - maybe Glider plugin can be usefull in this?

[gaggle]

Look's good Aaron. I realise it's a limited experiment for now, and still early on, but the movement looks nice I think.

I don't know if the wheels are rotating yet? Not the most critical factor at this point I suppose, though I belive getting proper rotation based on speed requires its own set of specialized scripting.

Obviously I don't know about how versatile and such your rig is thus far, but I'm really looking forward to seeing where it'll go. I hope the community will rise up and help solve whatever issues you're going to hit.

I gave vehicle rigging a go a while back trying to stick to the various MAX(4) constraints -- I did not succeed very well :)

[Aaron Moore]

heres a flash demo of the rig now... nothing too fancy. I'm trying to figure out how to have the 4 suspension hubs influence the rotation of the body...

Also I'm trying to look into some kind of automated secondary motion control for the body movement... anyhow, let me know what u think... err files coming soon

Anyway, watch the demo here:
http://www.vi2.com/Files/VehicleRig/vehic_ver3_demo.html

l8r

[AshodT]

really interesting!
waiting next update :buttrock:

[Aaron Moore]

and the file... :p

http://www.vi2.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=144#144

get it from there...

And i need ideas and suggestions guys!

[Aaron Moore]

hey, posted the file... just in case u didn't see the other thread:

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41112

check it out and let me know what u guys think. I really need input to make it better guys!

[jadedchron]

me like.

[ostov]

Looks very cool (I have never seen something like that in 3d) Can you make it so it looks like a gangster car, you know... A lot of jumping... Greate stuff man


ostov

[RJB]

Have you tried using Reactor's Toy Car that comes with Max 5?

[Aaron Moore]

RJB: the toycar, from what i know, requires a simulation to be run, and it doesn't give the user too much control over the behavior of the vehicle...

[magicm]

Looks very promising Aaron!

:applause:

[Aaron Moore]

Fist a picture of my prob :D :

http://www.vi2.com/Files/VehicleRig/wheel_setup.gif

Ok the bones are setup with limits so that the tire cannot intersect the body... but the problem is it now intersects the ground... is there a way to have the child influence the vertical movement of the parent when the limits are reached so that the tire then starts to push up the hub...

Here is the max file: http://www.vi2.com/Files/VehicleRig/wheel03.max

Any ideas as to how to rig that? Perhaps some kind of script to detect collision with the ground target is necessary. HELP!

:beer:

[jadedchron]

wish i could help ;\ give me a couple months and i'll see if i can answer it by then :p

[R32]

Try unlinking your wheel hub dummy from the end bone and using a position constraint instead. I tried it out on your rig and it seems to fix the problem. :)

[Equinoxx]

I merged all threads concerning this topic together, so it may appear a little disorganised.

[gaggle]

Ahh, Equinoxx, I was infact sensing something was wrong, but I assumed it was just me who had dreamt seeing these posts in seperate threads :rolleyes:

Anyway, Aaron, the Reactor-car would indeed have to be simulated, I think that'll be the case for any part of Reactor. But is that a bad thing? The toy-car example itself isn't very useful as you say, but I think it's included as an example of the stuff you can do with Reactor. I think it's a scripted object of some sort?

The manual has more on that, but I'll be damned if I can find it around here atm. Someone else to shed light on this? Oh!, or maybe going to the discreet reactor forum could be helpful?

But assuming one can script properly for reactor, I'm dreaming of a button in this coming "Aaron's Car Rig" script. A button that will compute the movement of the car's body, based on the movements of the wheels and shockabsorbers and such. It ties into what I've described earlier in this thread, that I'd like to see a car-rig where you animate the basics of the car, and then hand the tiny movements off to cook in a simulation.

I think what you've got so far looks pretty good, certainly useable to a certain degree, and most certainly further along than I've gotten before. I think though that your current purely-constraint-based approch is one that could be awesome to see working in unison with more scripting. I'm still dreaming of a script ("Aaron's Car Script v1.0" :)) that has, say, it's own floating window, with various car-specific animatable options (mass, gravity, road roughness, shock-absorber quality). And you'd move this car-looking dummy around as you want it, making sure the wheels didn't take off and such sort of like what you've got going now, and then hit Simulate to get the final body result.

That'd be an aawweesome way to animate cars driving along various roads. Following that, I think 2.0 of the rig, could be one that takes into account various modes the car can be in. Ie. if you want a car that flips over, you.. I don't know.. you animate the grip for each tire down to zero, and they stop trying to stick to the road, instead content with just following the body and being simulated like proper rotating rigid (or even vaguely softbody?) objects..

Well at any rate, something like that. I know I'm asking a lot, but, er.. yeah, just keep in mind it's: A) completly dreaming of the ultimate in car-rigging, and B) I'm "only" asking for the silly modes thing for v2.0 :surprised

[Aaron Moore]

Ok i've been struggling with some expressions work... For some reason when i attach a sclar variable to a object being influenced by ik, the value will not update the object with the expression... in fact the value remains constant even though it moves...

Any idea why I can't get the position of an object being moved by a fk system? I think it may have something to do with dependency but not sure...

any ideas... if necessay i can post the file to clarify issues...

[Aaron Moore]

one more issue... If, for example, I link an objects z position to a tape's length value via wire params, and i link the tape to two dummiles to "determine" the distance between the two objects it WON"T UPDATE THE POSITION OF THE OBJECT!!!

So is there any other way to measure the distance if I can't base it on the values of the two dummies... see the above post for details of why...

[LFShade]

For that reason I'd recommend using a script controller rather than an expression. At least through the script controller you can get the world distance between the objects. You might still run into dependency issues, and sometimes Max isn't smar enough to warn you about it (you just get broken rigs and parts that mysteriously fly off into space).

[Aaron Moore]

Originally posted by LFShade
For that reason I'd recommend using a script controller rather than an expression. At least through the script controller you can get the world distance between the objects. You might still run into dependency issues, and sometimes Max isn't smar enough to warn you about it (you just get broken rigs and parts that mysteriously fly off into space).

Ok i started playing with the script float... i'll try the controller in a sec... but the problem is the dependency issue... Even using the dependOn thing with both the ik base and the ik root selected... It won't update!!!

heres the file in case some one is interested in giving it a go....

http://www.vi2.com/getFile/84611.max

I'm still hacking away at it if u have any ideas!

[Aaron Moore]

Woot! fixed a few dependency issues... this version shows how the wheel rig can potentially be setup to react to both input from tire target and input from upper suspension arm...

http://www.vi2.com/getFile/84763.gif

I still need to attach the rotation for the master control to the rotataion of the new wheel linkage...

note that the actual wheel geometry is only a paramter used in the script to determine the radius of the tire...

the actual position of the tire is the new linkage control....

And the file!
http://www.vi2.com/getFile/84718.max

[magicm]

Aaron, I've been playing around with your last car-rig...

I tried to find a way to tie the wheels to a ground object.
Still working on it, but here's a screen-capture (mpeg) anyway:

wheelcollision.mpg (http://equinoxx.cgcommunity.com/temp/wheelcollision.mpg)

I have to get back to work now, but I'll try to explain what I did later... ;)

[gaggle]

Mmm.. looks so hot magicm :)

At some point wheel-rotation based on distance travelled should be implemented I gather. I never actually figured out how to get that going in all three axis, but I understand it's not at all impossible.. just gotta have the right math I guess :)
Anyways, just at some point having that implemented would add to the "oh that's a nice carrig" thing. It's a pretty seperate system from the suspension-thing though so I have no worries it will get in there in due time.

More more. I'm always eagerly awaiting the daily progress this most interesting project seems to undergo.

[Aaron Moore]

Very cool magicm!!!

i'd be most interested in that setup! If I could intergrate that into the new wheel rigsetup, that should pretty much wrap that part of the rig up :)

some issues to mention in terms of wheel spin....

up till now its been mostly developing the wheel rig which, with magicm's setup, illustrates how an automated setup can be 100% benifitial... in terms of wheel spin, it has been brought up that some wish to have control over this factor. In order to accomidate this obvious and necessary control I need to determine how to add control while keeping automation in areas where the user does not want to manually control it.

In terms of calculating rotation, it should just be a matter of getting the tire's change in position per frame and then calculating the appropriate rotation.

I need to look into determining how to get an objects position at a "previous" frame... Once I figure that out, i'll start working on some wheel rotation prototypes...

Thanks for your input and i'll be posting most stuff soon... (have a bit of a cold, and i'm kinda feeling woozy so havn't had much time this past few days)

L8r

[gaggle]

An animatable slider that controls the weighting between automatic rotation based on distance, and a spinner that sets said speed?

Ie. usually the Weighting Slider would be set to 0, and the wheels rotate by use of script.

At frame 25, place a key for the Weighting Slider.

At frame 50, animate the Weighting Slider to 100%, and set the Wheel Spin spinner to, say, 300 rotations per minute.

At frame 75, set keys for Weighting Slider and Wheel Spin.

At frame 100, animate Weighting Slider to 0%.


The result would be a car that spins its wheels from frame 50 to 75, with the wheels accellerating and deaccellerating back to Automatic RPM.

For extra coolness I do so ever suggest putting a "Current RPM" gauge on the interface, so you can see the actual RPMs irregardless of settings. Thus allowing for easier settings of the Absolute RPMs.

..right off the bat I can see that this plan does not take into account if you'd want to control each wheel individually. I don't have a handy interface-idea to solve that right now :shrug:

Anyway, just a quick idea, maybe something can evolve from it.

[Aaron Moore]

just a little issue i need some help on... I'm using some scripting that uses the object's name... is there an easy way to setup a script or something so that u can assign the various wheel rig paramaters via selecting objects?

Perhaps l8r when the rig is compelte, some maxscripters can help package the rig into a nicer interface.

[phil]

Great work you're doing Aaron.
I down-loaded rig 3 the other day and had a play around, pretty impressive.

I had a thought though that you could probably automate the car roll (forward/backward), so i made a humble attempt.

you can get the updated file at

www.whiz.com.au/vehicle_rig04.rar

hope it gives you some ideas, it's pretty rough, unfortunately i don't have time to tart it up at the moment.

keep up the good work.

cheers,
phil

[gaggle]

Aaron, In my opinion in a project like this where what features to be included are uncertain, and the interface is in constant flux, it's better to just get the functionality working now and worry about things later :)
Ie. if it works based on absolute object-names then that's all good, then later comes what might end up being basically a rewrite, that takes into account all the intended features and interfaceoptions.

[phil]

I'd have to agree with gaggle. just get all the elements working the way you want them and then later on down the track write a script that creates all these elements on the objects selected. Otherwise you find you waste time making things pretty only to find you have to rewrite them later on anyway.

any updates? :drool:

cheers

[Martin Andersen]

hehe... what a week.. to many :beer: and way to little 3dsmax :shrug:

Remember to do a tutorial also..:love:

[Aaron Moore]

been playing with a bunch of ideas people gave me. plus still waiting for magicm to tell me what he did :)

I'm gonna look more into using springs to detect some form of collision detection... mmmm automated independent suspension systems influcing body sway and motion....

[magicm]

Aaron,

I'm still working on the setup, but here's an explanation of what I did to keep the wheel stuck on the ground..

I've also done some tests with the rest of the setup, of which you can see a test-render (cinepak) here (http://www.houding.nl/temp/car-rig-test.avi)..
btw: there are only 2 keyframes in this animation. just the start/end frame of the car

[Joel Hooks]

Oh man, Magic indeed. That is very cool. I can't tell you guys how great I think this project is.

Would a set-up like this be able to handle a roll (like a barrel roll from turning to sharp, not automated, but the wheels would act right if they started flipping)? Go from surface to surface?

Thanks for all the effort guys, it's awesome that you are sharing this process.

[Aaron Moore]

ok... been playing around with the rayintersection stuff...
here is the maxscript so far... it creates a dummy at points of intersection.

magicm where did u place the script controller? on what object? just the y axis or what?!?

for i = 0 to 10 do
(
$Tape01.Target.Position.controller.percent = i*10
r = ray $Dummy01.pos $Tape01.Target.pos
collision = (intersectRay $Box01 r)

if collision!= undefined then
(
if distance collision.pos $Dummy01.pos < distance $Tape01.Target.pos $Dummy01.pos then
(
dummy pos:collision.pos
)
)
)

anyhow, I'm gonna set it up to compare for the closest point... i'll keep u guys updated if i get anywhere with it :p

Thanks...

[Aaron Moore]

bit of an update

point_of_collision = undefined

for i = 0 to 10 do
(
$Tape01.Target.Position.controller.percent = i*10
r = ray $Dummy01.pos $Tape01.Target.pos
collision = (intersectRay $Box01 r)

if collision!= undefined then
(
if distance collision.pos $Dummy01.pos < distance $Tape01.Target.pos $Dummy01.pos then
(
if point_of_collision == undefined then point_of_collision = collision
else
(
if distance point_of_collision.pos $Dummy01.pos > distance collision.pos $Dummy01.pos then point_of_collision = collision
)
)
)
)

if point_of_collision!= undefined then
(
print "here"
dummy pos:point_of_collision.pos
)

still don't know where to call the script from... any ideas? i can't call it from the position of dummy01 because of dependecy loop issues...

[magicm]

It's not completely fool proof yet, but here's my wheel setup so far..

vehicle_wheel_setup01.zip (http://www.houding.nl/temp/vehicle_wheel_setup01.zip)

[Aaron Moore]

thanks i'll look at it and let u know if i have any questions regard it... btw you had some nice body motion... was that just a spring?

[BxHBxH]

Aaron - and everyone else in this thread,

Have you been able to find out how to get the 'last value' of something to enter into an expression? I'm currently working through rigging a car, not quite as complex as your project, and I'm trying to get the wheel rotation down. Basically I want the wheels to be driven automatically by animating the position of the car. As you mentioned in a previous posting all you need for this is to find the distance traveled of the car (I've been using the 'length()' function to find the distance between the car at the current frame and the previous frame) and then translate that into rotation of the axle.

The problem I'm running into is how to increment this new angle value on top of the rotation of the axel from the last frame.

Any ideas?

-brian hill

[phil]

this'll do it Brian, it's only working in the x axes but wouldn't be hard to convert to more. You need to put a position list controller on the wl object.

------------------------------------------------
dependson $wl.pos.controller $car.pos.controller

r = $wl.radius
c = 2*pi*r
d2x = $wl.pos.x
((d2x/c)*2*pi)

-----------------------------------------------

just place this (script controller) on the rotation axes you need your wheel to roll around.

cheers

[gaggle]

The problem I've always faced when doing the wheel-thing, is getting it to work in all three dimensions?

[BxHBxH]

Phil,

Thanks for the script controller info. If you have a moment do you think you could elaborate on what the variables and other things actually mean? I don't know too much about MaxScript, but I'm very eager to learn. I'm on max 4.26, so I can't open the current vehicle rig that's being used in this discussion - however I'd still love to implement the same technique into my vehicle.

If you're interested, here's a little animation I did of the vehicle just to test it out:

http://www.bxhdesigns.com/animation/lego_photo_320x240.mpg

Any info you could share would be great. thanks!

[phil]

sure thing - provided i understand them myself :)



dependson $wl.pos.controller $car.pos.controller
------------- just makes the script update whenever the objects wl and car move.

r = $wl.radius

-----------sets r equal to the radius of the object wl (the wheel)


c = 2*pi*r
--------------- works out the circumference of the wheel and assigns it to c (doesn't have to be c, could be anything...x, mum, dsfdsfdsg, etc...)

d2x = $wl.pos.x
---------------assigns the wheel (wl) objects position in the x axis to d2x (again doesn't have to be d2x, i just used that because at the time it meant something)


((d2x/c)*2*pi)
--------------- here's the guts. distance travelled (d2x) is divided by the circumference to find out how many times the wheel needs to turn to go that distance. this now needs to be turned into an angle so... we multiply it by 360 degrees (one full turn of the wheel) or in this case 2*pi which is the same thing only in radians which max uses for angles rather than degrees.



hope that helps a little.

cheers,
phil

[Joel Hooks]

phil - Why does it roll backwards for me? I am turning it into a kind of hotkey script so I can automatically assign it to a wheel.

I can put a - in front of ((d2x/c)*2*pi) and it goes in the correct direction, I just wonder if I am doing something odd that makes it roll backwards in the firstplace?

Thanks,

[phil]

i'm no expert when it comes to this stuff so I might be completely wrong, but I'd say it rolls backwards because of the viewport u made your wheel/cylinder in. The way the axis of your wheel is aligned is dependant on the view port it was created in
(i think). Try making the cylinder in the top vp, then rotate it 90 degrees so that in the left vp u see it side on and see if this rolls forward.

cheers,
phil

[Joel Hooks]

That's gonna probably make it way more difficult to automate. I guess that's the hard part about coding anything - making it error/idiot proof :)

It's educational though, so it's all good. Thanks for the hint.

[gaggle]

Is this in any way of interest?

http://www.gignews.com/kappmarch02.htm

[MCage]

Why im always too late!:cry: :cry:

It's not completely fool proof yet, but here's my wheel setup so far..

vehicle_wheel_setup01.zip [h++p://www.houding.nl/temp/vehicle_wheel_setup01.zip]

But the link don't work :'(

CAn someone help me in founding the file, or can send me ? please!!

I whanto to learn too :cry: :cry:

Please help

THX

[MCage]

MAGICM WROTE :

It's not completely fool proof yet, but here's my wheel setup so far..

vehicle_wheel_setup01.zip


__________________
online! :: magicm.com



PLZ :'(

[Joel Hooks]

Hopefully he doesn't mind:

magicm's Vehicle Wheel Setup (http://www.impactforensic.com/joel/vehicle_wheel_setup01.zip)

[MCage]

THX !!!!!!!!!!!:applause: :applause:

[magicm]

Originally posted by lowdown
Hopefully he doesn't mind:

magicm's Vehicle Wheel Setup (http://www.impactforensic.com/joel/vehicle_wheel_setup01.zip)


No problem!
I'm curious how you guys develop it further, let me know if you have something ;)

[jussing]

Hey guys!

This is looking awesome!

But:

Originally posted by magicm
Aaron, I've been playing around with your last car-rig...
...
wheelcollision.mpg (http://equinoxx.cgcommunity.com/temp/wheelcollision.mpg)

...I'm also late, so how about a repost of this? ;)

Cheers,
- jonas

[PhantomDesign]

I found this link for the late-commers (Including myself).

http://www.vi2.com/Files/VehicleRig/

O.K. This is my first time on this forum...so bear with me.

I'm consider myself to be very good at mathematics, physics, programmming, and thinking spacially(3D), so I imagine I'll probably diesct this project and send it back updated(assuming I have time). It's the least I can do in exchange for the excelent work I've seen so far.

I've been really workign on cars a lot recently. If you go to my website Phantom Design Studios (http://phantom.ssip.net/) that should be quite obvious. You can also check out my hidden bonus feature section (http://phantom.ssip.net/Bonus%20Features/) where I made a video for thowing off the side reflection work. Yeah the enviroment sucks (sorry).

Does anyone know anythign about motion capture stuff? Like the possiblility of using a joystick? I'd like to eventually turn this setup so you can basically set up a car like you would edit GTA3 car physics.(attachment)

[PhantomDesign]

Could someone convert http://www.vi2.com/Files/VehicleRig/vehicle_rig03.max to 3DS Max r4.? Another option is I can try downloading "boolcntrl.dlc" and "ViewportManager.gup" from soneone (please tell me what folder you got them from). I don't know if htis will work though.

Thanks....

[gaggle]

I'm sorry I can't help you with your R4 problem, I hope someone else can jump in and save the day.

I just wanted to do a :thumbsup: smiley thing, and say that I would like nothing more than to see more progress being made on this. The idea of joystick-mocapping and the car-properties sounds about as extremly slick as can be imagined. Less would do at first though.. I'm not sure wheels were ever made to rotate in a proper axis-inderpendent manner.

Anyway, I'm for one looking forward to any news on this whole car-rigging-thing.

[PhantomDesign]

Well, I havent really started max scripting merely because I could never figure out how to get started. I figure I could disect this and then update it with some realistic forumals (figured I'd use double-wishbone suspensions :) ). I could probably add in tire rotation. I've done it before somehow (where the car can even turn and the tires still rotate properly) but I forgot what I did.

[JayCMiller]

I've been playing around with my joystick & max, it's pritty easy to set up (just under the motion pannel) but I can't get it to stick to the objects axis, it allways stays on the World.

a coupple of years ago I found a script (or plugin?) that simulates automotive physics, but I can't find it again:cry: I'm going to have to go through my pile of cds, it could be in there somewere, from memory you set up the car and either keyframe it or drive it with your joystick!! then compute the scene and all your suspention and secondary motion is calculated for you. I'll keep looking and post it when I can.

[PhantomDesign]

That'd be awesome if U could find that script. I'd even be willing to try to give you something worthwhile in return :)

[magicm]

It's not available yet, but 'Vehicle Simulater' seems like THE tool for car simulation:

http://www.newplugins.com

[Obaid3DFX]

this is very interesting thread......

very nice project indeed....


any how, did you hear about this program:
ReelMotion Animation Tool v1.0 from Motional Realms

it is car simulator....


check it here.... http://www.reelmotion.com/

cheers

:applause:

[Strob]

I have bought Newplugins Vehicle simulator and I'm very happy with it. It's very fast and we have a good control on the animation cause we draw the path in the top view and we keyframe the car orientation in the top view too. The plugin calculate the behavior of the wheels and the suspension. I did some great animation very easily with it. I'll put them online soon if you want.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/jstrob2/K_2000_of_Hazard_001.jpg
http://www3.sympatico.ca/jstrob2/K_2000_of_Hazard_002.jpg
http://www3.sympatico.ca/jstrob2/K_2000_of_Hazard_004.jpg
http://www3.sympatico.ca/jstrob2/Buck_L_ego_08.jpg

[gaggle]

We want. Definitely. I say feel quite free to make them available, sounds pretty sweet.

[Strob]

Ok I just posted the animation on my blog. Excuse me for the delay. Here it is:

:lightbulb Car animation (http://jstrob.dnsalias.com/archives/000062.html)

It's on my own server so I hope it will be fast enough. Please tell me if it's too slow.

Thanx

[PhantomDesign]

Well, I started working on my simulator. Now it'll only work in 3D Studio Max, and will require you follow a step by step process (in a well written tutorial). You'll start out with a scene pre-setup by me, and link your car to the correct objects, then set a few parameters. I don't immagine it'll be 100% user friendly like the wheel radius will have to be set up by seting the radius of a hidden cylinder, and you'll actually have to go over to the dynamics control box to set the traction, but htat will be thouroughly explained in the totorial with lots of pics. Once this is all set-up, pull out your Microfoft Sidewinder and drive away :)

Of course you'll probably be driving a dummy car and your terrain will have to be very low poly during your driving sequence.


I have a question though (I can probably figure this out eventually). Now I'm using dynamics to set up the colision dection, gravity, springs and a lot of other stuff. What I want to do is have the car supported by 4 springs attached to "wheels" Now these wheels arent suppose to change their angle except vertically(linerarly) in relation to hte orientation of the vehiclle. So I kind of have a loop of parenting. The wheels parent the box through springs while the car makes sure the wheel is locked into a linear position relative to the car. If anyone has any ideas or tutorial links that would be helpful.

I hope I made some sense.

P.S. How much does the Newplugins vehicle simulator cost?

[PhantomDesign]

Wow..these things are expensive for what they do. Considering how many features $800 & $600 programs usually have, these are too expensive. Maybe I could develop a 3DS Max plug-in and sell it for $300. All I really need to do is learn scripting to make my project user friendly. 3D Studio max has a lot of stuff built in which would allow someone to build such a simulator somewhat easily.

[Strob]

Yes now the new version (1.5) of Vehicle simulator will be 600$, but when I bought the version 1, it was only 99$! And also I got free update for life.

[PhantomDesign]

I'd deffinetly buy it if it was 99$. Did they steadily increase the price, or has it just multipled itself by six immediately. I think they saw too muhc of reelmotion's project. I'm also curious if Discreet's "reactor" has car stuff built in. (haven't checked hte price on that though. Just sent and e-mail to discreet).

[Strob]

The price has jumped for the new version cause there will be a lot of new features in it. You can see yourself on this website: http://www.newplugins.com/

But this new version was supposed to ship a few months ago I think and it's still delayed...

You can use reactor to build a car rigging and there is an example with a toy car, but it's a bit slow to calculate with reactor and it has a tendency to crash often (like almost everything in 3ds max). But vehicle simulator is surprisingly fast and stable (of course it crashes sometime but less than reactor).

[PhantomDesign]

I'm almost certian they'll drop their prices quiclky within 3 months. They're probably trying to squeeze every bit of the market they can.

[Aaron Moore]

2 busy for the last 2 many months :p

I should be getting back to work on my rig :p
I'm in Japan and won't be back until the end of this month...

A few ideas I wanted to pass by you guys and get some input on.

1) Joy stick issue, I've been busy with work related such (actually doing some programming work) and doing 3d math for a camera engine, i realized that it would be fairly easy to adapt the motion control to the rig.

If I could keep track of the change in input, I could keep a variable that would keep track of current rotation... input fromt the joy would add to that variable and not directly control the vehicle... This would fix the orientation problem...

2) Along the same lines... One of the issues with the wheel collision thing was that it didn't account for momentum. I was thinking that by keeping track of the vehicle momentum, and adding it to the vehicles position it would take care of the wheel collision problem. To avoid the tire from moving up and down rapidly, a maximum movement velocity could be set... this could be used to make the car hit a bump and jump into the air rather then just drive over the bump.

3) Subsequently, collision checks became an issue because of the frequent checks it needed to make... I was wondering if it would be possible to use some kind of adaptive collision checks... for the ground... for example... there is almost no point in checking whats behind the tire... only whats in front of it....

anyhow, just some ideas. I hope to get back to work on this rig this summer.

Ideas, comments, suggestions are ALWAYS helpful. And sorry about being gone so long...

[Strob]

Originally posted by Aaron Moore
2 busy for the last 2 many months :p

I should be getting back to work on my rig :p
I'm in Japan and won't be back until the end of this month...

What are you doing in Japan? I love Japan! I was there for two months in march and april. You can see a lot of pics (http://www.jstrob.net/spgm/spgm.php?g=PHOTO/TOKYO2003) on my blog (http://www.strob.net)

Keep up the good work.

[PhantomDesign]

I'm thinking I'll be converting whatever terrain object is selected into a sort of NURBS grid. There will be a collection of points which well be selected a specific intervals looking from the Z axis. This basically ends up with a grid where each point on the grid has a height value. I'll then use some aproximation formulas to interpolate the height of the terrain based on the nearest X points (9 may be good).

[Aaron Moore]

Originally posted by PhantomDesign
I'm thinking I'll be converting whatever terrain object is selected into a sort of NURBS grid. There will be a collection of points which well be selected a specific intervals looking from the Z axis. This basically ends up with a grid where each point on the grid has a height value. I'll then use some aproximation formulas to interpolate the height of the terrain based on the nearest X points (9 may be good).

Why nurbs?!? How far have you gotten? Can you please post some pics of what you have done so far?

[Aaron Moore]

BTW I was in Japan for family reasons. I'm out in the country right now... Gotemba, but I'll be back in tokyo this week. I've been taking some pictures so i'll post when i get a chance.

I'd like to find one or two scripters to help me on this rigging project, especially more when i get back on my comp with max.

magicman and a few others have been very helpful, and I was wondering if any of you would still be willing to share some of your talent and shed some light onto my rigging project.

Thanks guys.

[Alex Morris]

Wow what a great thread!

Just my 2 cents worth.........what about picking up physics values from a bitmap applied with UV coords to the terrain.

For instance you could vary from road to offroad, sticky to skidding; if you had dust particles you could cue them over dusty areas just by putting a painted map in a channel.

Not sure how you would do this (never mind the rigging!).
Skidding would affect your wheel rotation algorithms though.

[Aaron Moore]

This kind of a thing would be easier to simulate in an outside package... aka own software... I'm thinking about doing this as I've been realizing that doing all this within max is getting pretty difficult...

The only problem with taking this outside of max is that Keyframing and what not + dealing with my own animation system in an outside app is a little more work then I wanted to originally do.

I have a friend who is a physics geek + fellow programmer so I'm in the process of writing him to see if he'd be willing to work on this with me.

If so we would definately look at things like varying traction and what not...

[PhantomDesign]

I'm trying to make my program so you won't want to touch the key frames. Once the car is setup, you have two inputs; Acceleration & steering. You animate these values over time and you can make your car drive the perfect line. Perfect for race simulations. Brakes are combined into the acceleration slot as being -acceleration. The acceleration slot is not real acceleration, but mimics the gas petal.

I'll also have thorough tutorials. I don't imagine that it'll be too difficult to learn my setup and you'll probably never want to go back.

Right now my only problem is figuring out a formula for rotating an angle by an angle. I know how I could fake it or just create objects and rotate them twice and extract 3DS max data, but I want to break everything down to the formulas.

[Martin Andersen]

Hi... some of you maybe read the review with Christian Waadt and notesed how he used particels just like this:

http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/community/lightwave/waadt/images/m6tqs01.jpg


Just wanted to post it since it could be usefull... Geetings :bounce: :beer:

[Aaron Moore]

Thats a cool image! Whats that from?

[Martin Andersen]

Intension: to make brake marks

from this interview:

http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/community/lightwave/waadt/1.html

[Martin Andersen]

One more parameter to consider is that the wheels bend sideway when you take a sharp turn.. just like in the example I've done here (Hand animated):

http://www.3d-designer.dk/temp/car_rigging_discussion_bending_wheels_on_turn.gif


[Edit] hehe... now it start to get a little tricky, because before the car where moving depending on the wheels, but now the wheels is moving depending on the cars, mass, weigth and forces :buttrock:

This should also mean (correct me if I'm wrong) that the calulation of the car is priorited like this:


The car have two styles of movement:

- one where the car bend sideway when you do a normal turn, and the wheels is standing normal (wheels are not bending sideways)... (what we have done untill now)

- The second way is like the exsample above, where the wheel is bending and also the car.

So now we need a way to detect what driving style it uses depending on speed and turning :scream:
... this is getting insane and more fun :applause:

Have fun... I'll try get back on track, in this thread when I have some more time :p

[PhantomDesign]

Don't worry about not really being able to simluate slides and similar behavior. As long as the movement is natural, it should be easy to do in my simulator becasue it is physics based.

All pitch/roll/yaw movement when you turn, go over a jump/etc will be correct.

(Atleast in my simulator)

[Aaron Moore]

Good point martin... I dunno how much of the rig work being done eairler could handle that...

It would be an interesting challenge for sure. 4 points for wheels... 4 points for the shock tops... and one body.... the body can sway side ways, forward, back, etc and the arc for sideways would affect the 4 shock caps

Phantom: You keep on mentioning your simulator... please, can u post some picks of what it looks like right now? A quick look at what you have so far would give us a much better understanding of what you are working on beyond any text based explnation.

One more point, simulation might not be the idea way to do car motion because A it needs to run in real time Id assume, and second most animations exadurate motions for style.

Being able to interactively move object in the viewport and have the tires and what not respond would be much better then something that is hard to modify.

Its like reactor... reactor is an outside simulator rather then a in soft built in simulation like maya which is why its a little harder to use.

Anyhow, please post a pic.
L8r
Aaron

[Martin Andersen]

...also one other thougt is that when u do a sharp turn and the brakers is on, then the back wheels is sliding a little..

(frontwheel stear + enging, backwheel do nothing)

[PhantomDesign]

sorry, I only started it 2 weeks ago. So no pics.

You can check out my cars though (website below)

[Aaron Moore]

You might want to research the area of car based physics a little more as over and under steer effects, tire grip, engine torque, etc are all components that dramatically effect the driving style of a vehicle.

As people have suggested to me eailer when working on the rig, start with a simple simulation and get something working before spending extensive time coming up with a complex one because doing it in steps allows for input and suggestions + progress is more interesting to see then potential feature lists.

As for rotating and angle by an angle... I'm assuming you're using matricies right? Although quanterions are looking more and more appropriate for this kind of simulation.

Is anyone else here an avid c++/direct x programmer? I'm looking for a second hand at doing some tests if anyone is interested in working with me.

Thanx

[Martin Andersen]

Little test:

I'm thinking of a theory, where u have two cars.. one car that is some kind of "ghost" car.. witch is always perfectly placed on the ground and newer sliding, bending or anything...
Then we have another car that is the more natural driving style, this car always tryes as good as possible to be like the ghost car, but it can't since nature rules says it have to slide and have a little delay on the movement... try take look at this very simple example I've done here; showing the back-car/natural car sliding in sharp corners.

Also try make the travel time shorter and longer on the path.

www.3d-designer.dk/temp/Sliding_wheels05.max


Greetings.

[Aaron Moore]

I'd don't have max on me, can u post a comple of pics?

Also I'm following a physics guide written for a game engine, and I'm hoping to play with it in a few small test based applications. It would be an open source project for the first part, and I'm looking to get some help with programming and mathmatics, so if you're interested, PM me.

[MCage]

There is a way to have Spring controller for the rotation(the same of position spring)?

[PhantomDesign]

I'm a physics/mathematics person, and it is my genreal opinion that if you simulate things with natural physics formulas, anything that is realistic in real life is realistic in hte simulator. So I won't be worrying about this or that slide. I don't think programmers ever really do. Like GTA3. You can edit the cars pysics properties if you want, but they arent in terns of slidability, they're all things like aceleration, traction, shock compression, height, weight, etc...

Initially, I'm planning on having my setup be keyframe based aceleration/braking (1 control for the moment) and steering. If you don't like something, you can fairly easily twerak it. That way youi can have extremly realistic simulation of a car peeling tires while sliding around a corner, hitting a jump anbd landing on 2 wheels, and staying on 2 wheels as it slips between 2 semi trailers.

With a ghost car setup, it would [1] be extremly dificult to program and [2] you would have to rout e the intended controls back into steering and acel/brakign components anyways. [3]You would also have to do a lot of plotting the motion of the ghost car manually [4] and plotting hte ghost car would be dificult to line up with the ground [5] the results of your ghost car plotting would probably be extremly dificult for YOU to predict. [6] It would be very dificult to tweak.

With a joystick setup, creating your simulation would be extremly fast, but making it right would be dificult. I tried reelmotion's demo, and that thing was near impossible to drive properly, and I consider myself one of the best computer game drivers around. If I use a jystick imput, chances are you'll be able to use the joystick for the initial input, then go back to keyframes to correct your drivng. Chances are joystick input will come in part 2.

Does anyone else have any ideas or have I misssed something earlier I forgot to mentiuon?

[MCage]

This is what i have done..

I think with a better rotation spring control, can be better..

There are some error's, but is only a test...

http://utenti.lycos.it/pmbcnovara/TEMP/PrewCar.avi

[Aaron Moore]

Thats really cool mcage... can u explain your setup a bit more?

[MCage]

I have used ur car setup: for the tire on surface u can use a plugin from digimation called glide ,or the follow surface script from scriptspot,then i have keyframed the tire animation, after that, i have create 2 dummies, one for the spring rotation(the physics of the chassie)for this i have used the springjoint script(but with a spring rotation controller,the result will be better),and another for the rotation,controlled from the tires/springs on the surface,for that i have used a look at controller, to have a sort of spring constrain for the rotation..


sorry for my bad english..., i will post some picture..


Bye

[Martin Andersen]

if any of you get any problems with the look-at controller (like looking upward) there is i smart method with some Path follow. and the path ends is Xlinked to dummys..

[AndersEgleus]

Nice to see someone is actually using that script (http://home.sol.se/anders_e/AE3d/Scripts/SpringJoint/Index.htm). Did you use SpringJoint in the avi you posted, MCage? It looks like a very good rig to start from, especially if it's realtime.

Anyway, I agree that someone aught to code a proper spring rotation controller plugin. It would make my scripted one obsolete, but it would make me, and I suppose a lot of other people, very happy.

[Martin Andersen]

YES, absolutlee awesome !!!


sorry for my bad english

[MCage]

Yes ,i have used springjoint in real time. :D

if any of you get any problems with the look-at controller (like looking upward) there is i smart method with some Path follow. and the path ends is Xlinked to dummys..

Martin can u explain me how to do?

[gaggle]

Maybe simulation is the smart way of getting proper carphysics, I don't have any special way of knowing before I see it. I think personally I'm more in favor of a more manual way of doing it though, instead of making the most realistic simulation that's perhaps of more interest to the programmers out there.

To clarify, a 3rd party program that at its core is all about doing everything as realistic as possible, etc. etc., reminds me of another program: RealFlow. Terrific program that, but it's incredibly hard to use in a production because everything it does is based around doing things realistically. You spent sooo much time doing little else but simulating, review results, tweaking, simulating, review result, tweaking, rinse repeat. It's not my intention to suggest that a 3rd party car-simulator simulator would neccessairly spawn the same problems RealFlow does, the two programs just seems to share a certain basic way of working that I'm not instinctivly drawn to.

I think earlier in this thread a car-rig was discussed that was more "for-the-animator", meaning more manual labor getting the car to move right in the first place, but also much easier to tweak to get it moving just right. "just right" includes, say, completly unrealistic skidding across a surface, or suddenly flipping over, without much in the way of reason for why it would do that. The requirements of certain scenes when you're dealing with directors that wants a specific look can call for the weirdest things :).

More specifically I thought the idea of a hand-animated ghostcar sounded rather nice, albeit apparently quite difficult to implement. But I like the basic idea, that of letting the animator getting the basic movements down, then having a simulation that can add all the little car-movements. For all I care the program could be written in increments, for starters I'd be happy to see a car rig that could rotate the wheels properly. I realise one-feature-at-a-time is not an efficient way of programming, but maybe it beats getting bogged down in all kinds of features and never getting anything that really works. I think SimCloth started out pretty basic, and then grew with each version? Seems like perhaps an easier way of making things than having to get everything just right from the very first version.

Anyway, the car-rig I've been dreaming about has less to do with left/right/accelleration/deaccelleration and then simulating the result in a 3rd party program, and more to do with the ideas of textures that defines the surfaceproperties, basic keyframes controlling the overall carmovements, and keeping everything inside MAX.

Though obviously anything that comes out of this thread deserves intense interest. And as already mentioned, maybe simulating the whole shebang really is the best way to go about doing this, I've been known to've been horribly wrong before :).

[Aaron Moore]

Originally posted by Martin Andersen
if any of you get any problems with the look-at controller (like looking upward) there is i smart method with some Path follow. and the path ends is Xlinked to dummys..

Ok, a while back, i was testing, like the auto body rotation using 4 look at points (basically the shock tower caps) and using the inverse to esentially calculate the necessary rotation to align a box to 4 points...

But I got wacky results... could you explain you idea more?

[Aaron Moore]

Originally posted by gaggle
Maybe simulation is the smart way of getting proper carphysics...

I think earlier in this thread a car-rig was discussed that was more "for-the-animator" ...

For all I care the program could be written in increments... beats getting bogged down in all kinds of features and never getting anything that really works.


All excellent points, and this is the reason I don't like the idea of a simulator as much as a rig. The reason I started designing the rig was for purposes of animating the car and the motions I wanted... not what some physics engine limited me to... With a rig, you can make your car fly, roll, spin, etc and ultimatly, the animator would have the freedom to control the vehicle... the rig would only be responsible for such things as shock movement, tire spin, body spring, tilt, and secondary motions related to moving objects.

The idea was you could easily animate a dummie on the desired path, and for initial rigs, the rig would be responsible for making sure the tires stay on the ground where possibe, the body sways and tilts according to how fast the box is moving etc...

Anyhow, when i get back to the US i'll look into this spings thing a little more and see what i can do about getting more automation in the area of body swaying and what not...

...

Here's a new one though. I want to dampen the movement of the shocks so that the tires arn't necessairly always on the ground... to automate this, i not only need to determine if the tires need to be moved, but i also need to deal with a max velocity or moment of the springs so that if the car hits a jump, the tires don't immediatly extend all the way but gradually go down due to the spring plus gravity effects... ie the car is going over speed bumps, so after the tire goes past the top of the speed bump the tire may be floating for a few frames before the car hits the ground again... any ideas on this would be helpful.

The advantage of the rig design is interactivity... and i think that we can collectively come up with a quite powerful tool. I appreciate everyones interest in this project as it inspires me and others to continue working on such things. I'm already impressed with what has been accomplished and I can't wait to get some more work done on it!

L8r everyone

[PhantomDesign]

Well, you did give me one idea. It would be a tutorial to go along with my project. Initially I was only planning on the steering and aceleration t obe the only things animatable. Well, lets say you hit a oil slick. Initially your traction will drop very low, but eventually you regain traction. Of course if you wanted to manipulate a slide, you could animate the static traction to drop for a couple of key frames. which would start the slidd and hten from there it would be natural.

How does this sound?

[AndersEgleus]

Anyhow, when i get back to the US i'll look into this spings thing a little more and see what i can do about getting more automation in the area of body swaying and what not...

You'd be amazed at the posibilities the combination of custom attributes and scripted controllers give rise to.

What you're talking about is actually a variation of what Spring Joint does. I don't think Spring Joint could actually be used to simulate a car body swaying in real time (as a car body's spring motion depends on four hierarcically equal springs), but it could be built on. Unfortunately, Spring Joint is quite a large script if you want to check out how it works, but the core rotational spring code is quite simple. I haven't got too much time on my hands, but if anyone wants, I could strip it of everything but the "main" engine, i.e a script controller simulating a rod of certain length/ radius/ mass connected to its parent with a torsion spring of certain tension and damping, which will be less than a page in code length. I'd probably skip the run up/caching stuff too, but i'll include it if people wish so.

That way you'd have something to work from.


The other stuff you're talking about, i.e. wheels leaving the ground, sounds very much as if it'd have to be simulated with a proper physics engine if it were to be automated. At least I can't think of any way of automating it in a specialized rig.

[MCage]

What i need is a script that add a spring rotation to the body of the car,where i can add springs(the 4 wheels ,like the position spring controller does) and where i can decide the rotation spring axis (if 1 ,2 or both 3) , and where i can limit the rotation(like the springjoint script)

.Is like the springjoint script,but u can add springs(the 4 wheels ,for example, that influence the rotation of the body on the ground )for a realistic result..

Is this possible?

A variation of springjoint..



P.S:sorry for my baaaad english :P

[AndersEgleus]

I'm sure it's possible, but I haven't really got the time myself. If anyone else is interested, I'm sure it could be of some help to have a look at the "stripped" Spring Joint code.

By the way, coding a positional spring motion is even easier than a rotational one, because you can count the mass as a point rather than a volume, and thus don't have to take inertia into the equation.

I'll try to have the stripped code finished by tomorow.

[MCage]

Thx ,Yes i'm interested.

But i hope some max scripter can help..

:)

[PhantomDesign]

That would be a simple script.

Just for a little preview of how my simulation is running is that the wheels spin which cause the car to move, not the other way around on my project. This allows for accurate skiddign and a ton more. I suppose The best way to describe it is everythign is purely force based. Forces on the tires, forces on the shocks, forces of momentum, ect...

That's just how I'm doing it. It'll take a lot of math and physics.

[Aaron Moore]

Originally posted by Anders Egleus
You'd be amazed at the posibilities the combination of custom attributes and scripted controllers give rise to.

What you're talking about is actually a variation of what Spring Joint does. I don't think Spring Joint could actually be used to simulate a car body swaying in real ...

The other stuff you're talking about, i.e. wheels leaving the ground, sounds very much as if it'd have to be simulated with a proper physics engine if it were to be automated. At least I can't think of any way of automating it in a specialized rig.

Well since the suspension setups are already have limited travel, something like this may be a good place to start from.

As for the wheels leaving, I'd need to keep track of my own variables, or use the animation history to do this. I dunno how much it would slow max down, but I think it would be possible to control the rate at which something moves at... ie just have another object which is a target position, and have a max velocity at which the actual object can move at until it reaches the target position.

Any more ideas on this?

[Aaron Moore]

Originally posted by PhantomDesign
That would be a simple script.

Just for a little preview of how my simulation is running is that the wheels spin which cause the car to move, not the other way around on my project. This allows for accurate skiddign and a ton more. I suppose The best way to describe it is everythign is purely force based. Forces on the tires, forces on the shocks, forces of momentum, ect...

That's just how I'm doing it. It'll take a lot of math and physics.

Phantom, I think one of the major issues people are pointing out is that a simulation is hard to control.

It would be much easier to drop in a spline path that the car rig follows and add your own spin/twist rather then have a physics simulator simulate it and try to drive though a city or something...

Although it may be more 'realistic' people don't want to tweak friction, traction and grip to get a car to spin, it would be much easier to hand animate.

You seem to be coming from a programming point of view, and a simulation would indeed be fun to play with, but in the end, it may not be as practicle for an animation.

The advantage of a rig is that you can rely on max tools to enhance the animation process

And because a simulation implies that the animator can not tweak the motion later (at least not easily) it makes it difficult to control.

Also one major thing that is emphasized in video and animation is things that are almost unreal or extreme. Simulators tend to mild things out and take the punch out of movements because of its 'realism'.

And because simulators often are simplified, they don't behave like you would expect a real car to...

IE in a real car, if u yank the brake while turning you car may roll/spin/slide etc depending on your vehicles setup (4wd, 2wd, front rear, cg of the car, and even things like how the front and real differentials are setup... when a car turns, the two front tires rotate at different rates to compensate for the width of the car) these factors are usually ignored in simulators and thus it can-not attain the kind of response as a real car can.

A rig is more of an assistan helper that can be added or removed easiy... it doesn't clutter the keyframes like simulations, and it relies on real time input of the rig... so things like tire rolling and all that can be added without keyframes.

Just my 2 cents for tonight.

[Martin Andersen]

it is like putting reactor inside a explosion... everything fly around correct, but doesn't look cool. Hand animated you will have more controle, object fragments spinning in cool motion passing the camera, you named it, it looks mutch better :-)

Aaron Moore > Do you remember the foot setup that where postet somewhere, the foot could move up and down, but couldn't go under a Y (world) value of 0.. The 0 value have to be animated in our setup.
Can be used to set teh contact point of the wheel/ground.

See it here:

www.3d-designer.dk/temp/leg_floor.zip
(Credit goes to someone else..)


this means that it could't go through the floor... this can be used on the wheels to :buttrock:

The only thing that I kind of need to complete (in theory) this car is to have a dummy that can follow the surface of an object realtime... then if you drag in the dummy with a move tool, then it will still follow the surface
(Surface contraint didn't work they way I liked it to... can't ue the move tool on it, can't even link the dummy to other object/parents)

[Aaron Moore]

you mean this thing?

http://www.vi2.com/Files/VehicleRig/wheel_setup.gif

???

[Martin Andersen]

ground target yes :-)

[PhantomDesign]

Very good point about the way animators want to control their work. I think I'll get realisim running first though then see if I can incorporate various interfaces for "smart" driving.

[Aaron Moore]

Ya phantom, there is nothing worng with doing a simulation. One thing that would be cool is if you could apply your physics at the end to the rig... that might be more useful.

Anyway, input, ideas etc and good discussions are always welcome.

[Martin Andersen]

AND remember!!! Don't limit this only to 4 wheel vehicle... plz see more options like 5 wheel.

3 wheel bikes... see other posibilities also..

[PhantomDesign]

I did think of one idea that may help. While the keyframe stuff for animating aceleration and steering values would be quite easy to use to perfect the driving (with a tutorial), I may want to addd soemthign where it tries to folow the spline based on the angle of hte spline on the XY plane. Your result won't actually folow the spline, but this would probably be much easier for people who are familiar with splines to mess with. Basically if you segment the spline into 1 spline =X keyframes, all you do is test the angle of the segment of the spline and test the distance bvetween each X, adn you can find your steer components and your aceleration components.

[PhantomDesign]

You'll be able to simulate 1 to 7billion wheels (lol) in version 2.0, but to keep it simeple I'm limiting it to 4 wheels which are all the same size with hte same traction, etc. It wont be dificult to make every wheel/shocks customizable, but I'm doing one step at a time.

[Erka2]

Phantom, what we will simulating in 3.0 version of yours programm? :D

[PhantomDesign]

I'll probably add aircraft.

[MCage]

I have some problems with this script..

Why in a scene work and in another don't?

Is possible that there is some hidden script?

This script allow u to rotate an object when u move another..
( car wheels..;) )


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dependson $Dummy01.pos.controller $Dummy02.rotation.controller
wheelDiameter = 50

angleTotal = 0
for i in 1 to currentTime do
(
--
-- How far did we move
-- from the last position
--
d = ( at time ( i - 1 ) $Dummy01.pos ) - ( at time i $Dummy01.pos )

--
-- How much of that motion was in the
-- correct direction
--
d = dot ( at time ( i - 1 ) $Dummy02.dir ) d

angleTotal += d * 2./ (wheelDiameter )
)

angleTotal

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take a look at the scenes...

http://utenti.lycos.it/pmbcnovara/TEMP/FloatScriptRotation.rar

Please help me...

[Martin Andersen]

dunno, but maybe use the oriantation constraint, it does the same !!!

[PhantomDesign]

Try a rotation(orientation) constraint, bones, links, or .....I just forgot the last thing. I'll tell you when I remember.

[AndersEgleus]

Are you sure the dummies in your scene are named correctly, and that Dummy02 has an euler xyz rotation controller (seems to require that), and that Dummy02 is linked to Dummy01 (Since I can't see the file, I'm just guessing here)?

Can't see any problem with the script, but I couldn't download the file.

This isn't like orientation constraint, which only keeps an object rotated like (an)other object(s). This is more like a roller script, rotating an object (Dummy02) based on the movement of another object (Dummy01).

[MCage]

OK , ok now all work Done :P , there was a little tecnical problem :P.

But now there is another little problem...

For example: If i move dummy01 in X direction,the object rotate,

But if i move dummy01 in Y or Z , the object don't..

How to do the object rotate if i move the dummy01 in all the direction ?


Thx

[Aaron Moore]

Probably some wired parameter...

The current rig uses wired parameters I think... I'll try to fix that in the future and set it up with a expression controller on some kind of master dummy.

Again, this rig using direct object names is temparay and does have issues that I'll hopefully address when i get back.

As for the issue of dealing with momentum and what not... does anyone have any ideas?

[AndersEgleus]

Aaron: instead of using explicit object names in a script controller (if that's what you're talking about), you can use the maxOps.getNodeByHandle property and inode.handle.

e.g:

objID = $Sphere01.inode.handle -- get the unique ID number of Sphere01

myObject = maxOps.getNodeByHandle objID -- returns Sphere01 in this case

This way, you can change the names of objects on which the script controller depends without causing errors in it.

[Aaron Moore]

I'll keep that in mind for future revisions. For now, I just want to get it going and to be able to play with. Later versions would ideally use a script to have the user assign objects to the various controllers via a rollout panel or something... anyhow... thats all.

[Martin Andersen]

I don't know if this have been done before, but here is a kind of rotation spring controle. Made in 3dsmax, no script used.

www.3d-designer.dk/meltdown2003/rotation_spring.rar

www.3d-designer.dk/meltdown2003/rotation_spring.avi (divx 5.0.5 sorry :)


Hope it is usefull.. someone do a automatic script for it ?

[odeathoflife]

Hey great work on this set up for the car...but I cannot seem to figure out how it is accomplished (the thread is really hard to follow)

Could you explaine the set up of the bones ( Like what is attached to what?)

Each "shock' is made of 2 bones each bone is attacted to a dummy...the dummies are attached to the car chassis and the tire...etc...

If it wouldn't be too difficult to do.

[Retaliator]

Found this car script on a japanese site. Maybe it's helpfull?

http://www.maxuser.com/scripts/c/carsim/CarSim.zip

I think it's an old maxscript version of that Vehicle Simulator from www.newplugins.com

Haven't really played with it yet. The included example gives an error when loading, probably because it's from an outdated max. The car drives in the air there. Wheels rotate though.

Maybe you can use it to improve your own?

[PhantomDesign]

I'll take a look at it. I've been very buisy. Started WAY too many projects. Just finished on huge one, which I'm really happy about.

[MCage]

I get an error ,Using the script...

....

The example seems to work..

[MCage]

HI all !!..

Any news on The car rigging?

Bye..

[EmreGoren]

waiting to see the onboard vehicle dynamics in Max6...

[granito]

Sorry guys but I had trouble following the thread, I have been using max for about 4 months now, so maybe there lies the problem. Anyhow Im wondering if small parts for the tutorial have begun. Im currently doing a short anime where I will have a complete car chase, similar to action movies like RONIN, Gone in Sixty Seconds (both old and new) and Driven. I'm still working on the model because I want them to be highly detailed, The simulation I want to achieve is racing like, as seen in games like GT3, and rally games. Anyhow I finnaly got one file from the discussion, and Im going to mess around with it a lil bit. Since I am new to animating and MAX itself Ill have a lot of input here. thats it for now.


...TO BE CONTINUED

[zukezuko]

I dont know if this has been sad
but a good way too track the weels on the surface
is dummys with surface constrains attached to the weels.

i prefer to animate everithing else with hand made keyframes.
For suspension i would do some sliding joints IKs.

[3dslothuus]

Let try it

[EmreGoren]

Originally posted by zukezuko
I dont know if this has been sad
but a good way too track the weels on the surface
is dummys with surface constrains attached to the weels.

i prefer to animate everithing else with hand made keyframes.
For suspension i would do some sliding joints IKs.

Hi zukezuko , if u can find time , would you show how to make it? May be a small tutorial..

Cheers
Emre Goren

[ImUrPeTii]

Whaz wrong with ur website:surprised

[zukezuko]

good idea Emre Goren
i will make one

posted in soon...

[EmreGoren]

Great :) waiting your tutorial..By the way , VS1.5 is about to be released soon ... www.newplugins.com has some siggraph videos on their site...they look really interesting..still waiting a downloadable version..

[zukezuko]

Done with my car rig.
The surface constrain is a good idea but....

The idea was to track the weels on a surface with the surface constrain. This constrain works on surfaces such as Loft objects
Quad patches and nurb objects, so the track hase to be one of these.

The problem seems to be this:
A surface constrain followed by a xy axis linkadge. Does anybody know how this could work?

On my car everything works fine on flat rally tracks.
It wont do on uneven surfaces, bec\ause the weels are linked on xy to the car, so there must be keyframe animation for the
weel z axis on uneven surfaces.

A constrain that follows the tracks surface AND the car xy axis would be the perfect solution.(maybe through a constrain combination?). Help on this is needed.

So check the .max car rig i made and tell me what you think..

Car rig (http://www.geocities.com/zukezuko)
there is animation too it.

[magicm]

newplugins (http://www.newplugins.com/) has released a demo of their Vehicle Simulator 1.5 - Car and Truck Edition.. worth checking out!

- Martijn

[MCage]

Emre Goren:
waiting to see the onboard vehicle dynamics in Max6...


http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=946269#post946269

And now? Icant get it to work!

Any help!..

[yoni-cohen]

I recently made a rig to controll boats for my project,
instead of using surface deformers or 3rd party plugins I used a conform spacewarp with the water as the object, aplied it to a plane 2*2 and used point helpers with attachment constraint to sample the planes deformation and avarage it to a 5th point helper that drives the boat

[Mokiloke]

What was the end result of all of discussion, its gone cold before the solution is reached. Does anyone have a working max file that we can have a look at.

I have had a good look at the demo of Vehicle Simulator myself, and have this to conclude. Its a great little simulator much more powerful than Havoc but..
- there is no way to control object elasticity
- can take a long time to generate
- IS quite difficult to setup

[Mokiloke]

A bit simple, a good start though
http://www.max3d.pl/art-other/video-tutorial.php

http://www.highend3d.com/3dsmax/tutorials/reactorcarsim/


How its done in Maya may be some useful ideas
http://www.gignews.com/kappmarch02.htm

[zukezuko]

I have got a solution...
yep
thats it
Animate everything (wheels and body) yourself
should be painful
but much better

[D-3]

hy guys... well after weeks i´m maked a simple car rig.. not is biger or impressive.. but is usefull....
unhappily my server this out of the air... as soon as he returns the operation I post here as it was made ok!! thanks

[MCage]

WOW :)

I CAN'T WAIT :)

[D-3]

Hello dudes.. I came back from a small vacasion of 7 days... my server continues out of the air... but I asked for a friend to host 2 files for me.. but he has a limit of very small band... then I ask for somebody to lower the 2 files and to host in a better server... ok... that files will be in the air for a short period of time for not crossing his limit....
I used a model lowpoly that I diffused in the 3dm.com. I hope they take advantage of that material to study.. thanks!!!

Portuguese-brazil .max file (http://www.chtabajara.uaivip.com.br/taba/d-3carrigport.zip)

inglesh - .max file (http://www.chtabajara.uaivip.com.br/taba/d-3carrigingles.zip)

[MCage]

Any news ? any animation/rig/or someting else to show?

Just curious..... :)

I'm play with the demo of Vehicle symulator, and i'm loving it.. :)


Anyone else?
I want to see some cool animation :)!

[PiledotNET]

Olá Patrick, excelente rigging!

Ficou muito bem balanceado a rotação das rodas. Só não achei um controlador que ajude a rodar as rodas independente do carro estiver andando para frente. Este rig possui?

Abração!

*Você conheçe o tabajara? o rapaz é 10.

----------------

Hello Patrick, excelent rigging!

Wheels rotation are very nice. But I dind't find a controler that rotate the wheel without the need of the movement of the car. Does it do this?

Cheers!

[D-3]

não tem por problemas tecnicos PiledotNET hehe mas tem um truque nesse rig.. vc pode marca o lugar dele parado com um box ou outra referencia e movelo para frente para rodar a roda e voltar ele usando o controle break para puxalo de volta... não é perfeito mas ajuda... heheh


doesn't have for problems technical PiledotNET hehe but he/she has a trick in that rig.. you can mark the place of him stopped with a box or other reference and move forward to turn the wheel and to return him using the control break to pull of turn... it is not perfect but it helps... heheh

[TimWoods]

any one got any further?

Im just about to start my own attempt at a car rig. does anyone have the basic files that were shared at the beginning of the thread? Im interested in having a little peek.

ta

[gilesfordcrush]

Hello all,

I've used keyframed rigs which use lots of look ats, expressions and position controllers, and you can get some OK results. But if you need to do something like a car turning a corner it is very hard to get all the rotation and roll of the chassis right without some of the wheels sliding about.

I've had good results using a Reactor setup for a vehicle going over a pile of rocks - I'll post a file if people are interested, and I'm currently working on a similar rough ground off road scene using Vehicle Simulator. I didn't get Reactor to be able to steer the wheels of the car - VS is better for this, but the actual rotation of the wheels in VS is not so good - I'll be expecting to use an expression on these later once I've got the chassis/bodywork working correctly. I might even use Reactor on the scene later to add a little realism here and there.

Giles

[Joel Hooks]

So now that it has been out for a while, what is the general consensus on Vehicle Simulator 1.5?

[gilesfordcrush]

I'd like to find at least one other person who has bought VS, and I'd like to know if anyone has made it do what they wanted rather than accepting what it did!

I'm getting some OK-ish results, I'd post them here but the vehicle is under embargo!

Giles

[Joel Hooks]

" I'd like to know if anyone has made it do what they wanted rather than accepting what it did!"

That sums up my interest too. I don't want to buy something that just transfers my problems to a new area!

[TimWoods]

Hello all,

I've used keyframed rigs which use lots of look ats, expressions and position controllers, and you can get some OK results. But if you need to do something like a car turning a corner it is very hard to get all the rotation and roll of the chassis right without some of the wheels sliding about.
Giles
I tried to get started with a rig, using Ik for the suspension. But ive not really done anything like this before so im scratching my head way too much and havent got anywhere. can you give me a starting tip, maybe a screen shot of suspension setup. I really need a push in the right direction.

thanks all!

[gilesfordcrush]

Tim,

The way I'm working, I do the suspension and the vehicle motion as two seperate things. I set up the suspension as an independent system which is controlled by the wheel - ie you move the wheel up and down and the suspension will move correctly, same with the steering, and I'll have a dummy system in there which will have an expression setup to control the wheels rotation as the chassis moves along. These setups are of the full suspension set up as it will be ghosted through the exterior of the car.

Then, I work out my vehicle motion using either dynamics (Reactor or VS or keyframes), the animation of which will start from my vehicle at rest position at frame 0, and the usable animation will start at some point after I've dropped it into my scene. When the animation of the chassis and wheels is correct I can merge in my suspension set up and link the wheel that drives all the suspension (which will be the wheel that gets rendered) to the low res wheel in the animation (which will not be rendered). This gives the wheel the correct positioning in the scene, then I'll set up an apropriate expression for the rotation.

The last project I did I had to make a vehicle drive along a slalom course made of cones. I did this with keyframes and could not quite get the chassis to look right, it always looked like it was sliding around the corers. VS is good at this, but the rotation of the wheels is bad- they always slip about. Reactor is really good at rough ground work, but again only really for chassis position as the wheels are not so good!

Giles

[shibumenon]

I rigged a dummy car using basic controllers and a bit of scripts .... Have a look at this preview.
I think I got the shocks going quite right .... crits/comments please.
As of now, I've manually moved the wheels (only on zee) to avoid the stones .... but I'm working on some scripts to automize that.

http://aaaachoooo.tollfreepage.com/RnD/CarRig_Shibu.zip

I will be enhancing the rig as and when I get time, and I'm trying to automize as much as possible ....... i'm also hoping to finish a script which could rig any 4 wheeler model, by taking in user inputs like chassis, wheels, path and terrain.

cheers
shibu

[jussing]

Wauw, that looks pretty good.

I think the chassis is not quite enough affected by the dampers - ie, maybe the dampers take to much of the bounce.

The first couple of bumps look really good, but the last one (on the car's front right tire), pushes the wheel all the way up to the chassis, and the chassis isn't affected very much...

(those bumps on the ground are pretty violent, and I think they'd send any 4-wheeler bouncing)

But really good work! :thumbsup:

Cheerio,
- Jonas

[MCage]

REally cool aaaaCHoooo , very very good :), can you explayn us how you do that? maube with a little tutorial.:>.

Thanks A lot .

Bye

[TimWoods]

looks great. could you tell us more about how you achieved it?

[PEN]

Nice job. I have some thing similar and have created an interface for the animators so that they can add objects to have the tire collide with. It is a bit tricky to set up to take into consideration every possiblitly but that isn't always needed anyway.

You should turn up the dampening on the shocks as they shouldn't keep bouncing like that.

[shibumenon]

Hi all .....

thanks for all the feedback ....

didn't really get any time on the rig after my last post ..... i plan to start working on it again next week, after i meet some deadlines at work this week.

ya, i think the chassis need to be affected more and i'll also rework on the dampening.

thanks again guys, and i'll try explaining how i arrived at it but lemme make it look better first ....

cheers
shibu

[SeaQuake]

Very nice work.
For those interested in vehicle rigging, we will be releasing a Training Kit that covers Vehicle Rigging in XSI in a few days. You can already download a demo here: http://3dquakers1.com/webroot5/download.php?det=18
This will be followed by a MAX version some time later.

[Erka2]

Too bad their rig isn't interactive in 3ds max :( But I think it is possible to create interactive one ;)

[TimWoods]

watched the demo of the xsi version, looked very sweet. any news on the max version, or is still in production?

[shibumenon]

Posting an update to my car rig ...... after a looooooooooong time .....
Didn't get time to sit on it at length .... but only for short periods after
long gaps ....... i hate that ...... coz then i kind of forget what i had done last!

in this version, i've fully automized the wheels for uneven terrain (have done minor tests
with animated terrain too, and it should work on that as well).....

check this link for a mov file:
http://www.aaaachoooo.com/files/rndClips/Shibu_CarRig_UnevenTerrain.avi (http://aaaachoooo.tollfreepage.com/RnD/carRigShibu_UnevenTerrain_V02A.zip)

I've left out part of the suspensions which i had got working in the last version....
Rotation of the car body is quite wrong .... and i'm developing ways to fix it....
shibu

[mikegentile]

very nice!

do you have a max file i could pick apart to see how it was done?

mg

[TimWoods]

looks excellent, keep up the good work. how much is maxscript compared to standard max controllers, and does it follow a path, or is the car position manually key framed?

[shibumenon]

its around 50 % scripting and the rest, some hardcore rigging, with standard max controllers and script controllers .....
he's on a path, and i have only animated the percent on path (only 2 keyframes in the scene).... and its kind of realtime.....

as i said earlier, i am working on a script using which can rig any 4 wheeler ..... and make it drivable on any uneven terrain ......
wish i could spend more time on it ........

shibu

[shibumenon]

rectified a problem with the download link .... :

http://www.aaachooo.com/files/rndClips/Shibu_CarRig_UnevenTerrain.avi


shibu

[TimWoods]

wish i could spend more time on it ........
shibu

you have done a great job on it. keep plugin away. I have used vehicle simulator, and its a real pain simulating, especially when you want to have two cars reacting to each other (i.e racing) a realtime animation rig would be a god send. If you can, put a dvd together and sell it. You will make alot of money. Or if you nice, give it away free ;)

[crearte]

Hi,

Very interesting thread, did any one finished this famous rigging???

CreArte

[Harvey]

Been awhile since I visited this thread...good stuff. Just figured I would do a little shameless self promotion as I have had a number of people asking me about this and hand out a little teaser and let everyone know that I am finally in production on my Vehicle Rigging DVD series. It will be a 4 DVD series covera wide range of topics. But thats all I can say for the moment until any kind of official word it given. Hope some of you will find it useful.

[Chris Thomas]

We are very happy to announce the arrival of a new instructor here at CG Academy. Chris Harvey (here is his profile...)

http://www.cg-academy.net/pages/bio...bio_chris_h.htm (http://www.cg-academy.net/pages/biographies/bio_chris_harvey/bio_chris_h.htm)

is joining us to produce a range of DVDs on mechanical rigging. Those who attended his popular Siggraph 2004 Master class on vehicle rigging will know how much of an authority Chris is on the subject.

His DVDs will tackle in-depth such topics as creating mechanical rigs for hand animation, dynamically driven rigs, and hybrid systems that offer the best of both worlds.

His series will mainly focus on creating four wheeled engine driven vehicles (or cars as they are otherwise known). But he will also deal with other vehicle types and how to simulate them via modular mechanical rigging techniques that can even by applied to character rigs and more.

Check in at the CG Academy site soon for more news on these DVDs and more.

.

[TimWoods]

excellent. i have the siggraph discs from discreet! good stuff. gonna have to buy these now!

great work, thanks for taking time to give back to the community. :)

[Harvey]

My pleasure...I am really looking foward to releasing these DVD's, got lots of good stuff to include.

[PEN]

Hey this is great Chris! This is one DVD set that I will definitly pick up.

I look forward to seeing what the full topics that you will cover will be and how your methods differ from my own.

Have fun creating them.

[Harvey]

Thanks Paul...I am definatly having fun working on them. I will post the detailed topics list as soon as I have it all nailed down. In fact I may start a thread, or continue it here of a sort of ongoing WIP of the dvds so people can get some teasers and stuff of what it will include.

[Chris Thomas]

Hey Chris, what do you think of this, I'm planning on making this model for a modelling DVD. If I do so, maybe you could rig it in one of your mech rigging DVDs?

http://www.christopher-thomas.net/pages/brazil/images/set1/hudson-example03.jpg

What do you think?

[Harvey]

Thats fantastic! I was planning on doing some train rigging on the 4th dvd...now I won't have to model it too! So thats a yes....you will now see this train rigged on the 4th dvd in the series.

[amckay]

Can't wait to buy all your dvd's and steal all your secrets Chris! Good work

-Allan

[crearte]

nothing important...

[Joel Hooks]

This is a disc series I can't wait to get ahold of. Please update this thread with the progress!

[Chris Thomas]

CREARTE

Only for those that know the special password


;)

[crearte]

nothing important...

[Chris Thomas]

Oh, ok, its the true value of pi

tell me that and the discount is yours

;)


Cheers

[LoneRobot]

it's round about 3. is that good enough? ;)

[crearte]

nothing important...

[TimWoods]

mmmm pie.... steak and ale, with a pint....dribble. back to the pot noodle i go...:)

[carnut]

im noodie at max wheni use the toy car consaint in the reactor the wheel roll wierd

[Texlon]

Hey guys,
I am bumping this thread as I am really interested in any news.
Pretty much all the links are dead and I have a hard time to figure out how some of you archieved the results. I really would be happy with a rig that lets me "roll" my car straight forward plus a simple ability to let it go round bends and that turns the wheels acordingly. I just need to slowly move my car along a spline or somthing on a even surface, that can't be too hard a do but I am really not sure where to start.
How can I set up the wheels to turn appropriate to the "speed" of the body, even in turns? If anybody can help me with that atleast, then I'd be able to do what I need to archive...

Cheers,
Leon

PS: Looking forward to the Vehicle Rigging DVD

[Texlon]

Comeon folks give me a hint.
I managed to get my wheels spinning around their y-axis acordingly by using a script float controller but I am not able to get them to spin in a turn. they slow down as the x-transformation of the car gets "slower" and the y movement speeds up (turn to the left or right), or somtimes they keep rolling around the x, y and z axis. I just need a simple setup were my back wheels are fixed and the front wheels can be rotated so the car performs a turn with all the wheels following in the appropriate speed and direction.

BTW: right now I need to use 4 simple cylinders with a set radius for the script to work and then link the "real" wheels to these "dummys" but that kind of ... sucks. Is there a way to manually type in the radius (half the dimension of the wheel = radius) and use them straight away?

Please help me,
a simple setup to controll the movement of a car on a flat plane is sufficient, I don't need any form of dynamic or suspension right know, just slowly move the car in a car park.

Have a nice day,
Leon

[Texlon]

I don't like bumping, BUT !!! I NEED HELP

In a regular car a differential gear would controll the movement of all powered wheels (mostly the two rear ones), because in a turn the wheels need to spin at different speed to compensate for the angular velocity that changes differently for every wheel in a turn. If I am not wrong the inner wheels have a slightly slower agular velocity and the outer ones are turning faster to keep the car in the bend. I am not a script kiddy at all, I seriously don't know anything important about scripting in max, but is this doable, with a very low error ratio? I would like to get into some noob-scripting to do little stuff like this, but I need a start, a little help would be enough.

There are so many good scripters and allround-talents here, so come on in and let's keep this thread alive...

[PEN]

I don't like bumping, BUT !!! I NEED HELP

In a regular car a differential gear would controll the movement of all powered wheels (mostly the two rear ones), because in a turn the wheels need to spin at different speed to compensate for the angular velocity that changes differently for every wheel in a turn. If I am not wrong the inner wheels have a slightly slower agular velocity and the outer ones are turning faster to keep the car in the bend. I am not a script kiddy at all, I seriously don't know anything important about scripting in max, but is this doable, with a very low error ratio? I would like to get into some noob-scripting to do little stuff like this, but I need a start, a little help would be enough.

There are so many good scripters and allround-talents here, so come on in and let's keep this thread alive...

Do the same math of x and add it to y for the final value of the rotation of the wheel.

[Texlon]

eh? Nice to hear from you Paul, but what exactly do you mean?
Doing what math for x and adding it to the wheels y rotation?
Do I then still have to move the "body" of the car and the wheels are rotating properly? How would I do it In bends? rotate the body in z and move it to another x and y position, or am I able to set the degree of steering and "push" it. Or is it possible to let it move along a spline/path and the wheels (front) rotate relative to the path, plus all the wheels rotate in the exact speed (slower and faster, depending on the agular velocity)?

Thanks so far, but I am not really sure what you mean and/or if you understood what I am aiming for.

Cheers,
Leon

[PEN]

Well assuming that the car is always moving forward on the X or Y position axis and the wheels are rotating around the Y axis you need to know how far the car has moved on the X and Y axis and then calcualte the rotation of the wheel from that. You need to add together the x and y position, simple really.

There is another way that I might out line in a DVD at some point where you use the distance between the current frame and the last frame but you need to know direction of travel in this case.

[mahmoudcg]

hi guys
this article might be usefull for scripting car kinematics
http://home.planet.nl/~monstrous/ (http://home.planet.nl/%7Emonstrous/tutcar.html)

the article is big, if you are just concerned with steering,angular velocity and motion paths, then skip to the last part of the article

exe and code are also available in the download section,
http://home.planet.nl/~monstrous/dl/cardem8b.zip (http://home.planet.nl/%7Emonstrous/dl/cardem8b.zip)
may be you can learn something from it, its in C language

this dll is required to run the exe
http://home.planet.nl/%7Emonstrous/dl/alldll40.zip

hope this helps

[Texlon]

Mh, I havn't slept for about 36 hours straight now, this might be the reason for having not much savvy. Anyway, I'd really like to get this thing done pretty soon, so I can concentrate on other things in the project.
For understanding I made a little drawing, well it's not very got, but I do not want to win a contest with it. It's simply there to have something to explain things on.

Well call me zany, but I still do not really get you Paul. You need to know that I am absolutely not into scripting and propper wiring in max yet, as I am mostly modeling/texturing and rendering, but I don't really have an animation background... sorry but I'll try learing and keep going.
I hope that the rough drawing gives you an idea of what I am trying to archive. Or maybe we're just talking at cross purposes... :argh:

[Texlon]

Right now I need to use 4 simple cylinders with a set radius for the script to work and then link the "real" wheels to these "dummys" but that kind of ... sucks. Is there a way to manually type in the radius (half the dimension of the wheel = radius) and use them straight away?Any ideas on this? these Dummy cylinders derange me :D

[PEN]

I get what you are trying to do. If you have it working on x then get it to work on y, then just add x and y together. That is all.

I guess I need to do a DVD on this stuff.

[shibumenon]

Hi Texlon,

There is a very very good tutorial on wheel rotations as per direction of motion by
Cuneyt Ozdas. Here's the link to the tutorial:

http://www.cuneytozdas.com/tutorials/maxscript/

This should definitely help you go ahead.

[cresshead]

you could save on work and buy the car sim plugin for max...!

http://www.newplugins.com/

[GeorgeBarjoud]

Cresshead, I think that's an excellent idea. :)

Hi all,

I've been following this thread for a while, and its high time I join it.

I saw Texlon's diagram. That's kind of what I started with in 1998. It works for most cases of animating a car.

PEACE

[Pkonst]

http://www.craftanimations.com/index.cfm?objectid=18DBBB4B-D22F-54AC-9BEA5F20C618FE18&showct=1This looks also interesting.

[PEN]

At this years Siggraph 2006 I will be doing two car rigging master classes. First will be intermediate and the second one advanced and will start where the first leaves off.

I believe that both classes are taking place on wednesday but it would be best to check out the official site as I don't know if that is confirmed at this point.

[mahmoudcg]

hi Pen
will these classes be available on dvds or something for those who wont attend ?

[PEN]

I dont' know what the are planning on doing with the content of the master class. I'm personaly planning on creating a car rigging series for cg academy but that will not be for some time.

[viro]

Try newplugins.com (http://www.newplugins.com). I have been using this plugin for about 2 1/2 years now and I am getting awesome results. It was used to animate some sequeces for the mars rovers as well as some scenes in Sin City.

I have been using it to realisticlay recreate accidents between cars and tractor trailers. I would have to say this would be the easiest way to get the best results. It is so very user frendly as well.

[wdcstudios]

please excuse this but I'm at work and wanted to subscribe to the thread now because I'll foget by the time I get off.