MadCar (Plugin for Car Animation)

#61

I tried the MadCar plugin, and followed the online tutorial but my car keeps going through the ground. Other instances the wheels looks all wierd and bounce all over the place. any tips.

#62

have you pressed the “update surface” button? try just a simple plane at first, get that working, then try your complex mesh, just to make sure it’s not the mesh. If you can get everything but a certian mesh working then I’d probably post the file so people (the author?) could look at what’s your with your specific mesh, everything I have tried so far seems to work fine, provided you remember to press that update surface button…

#63

Thanks for the advice, i did push that button file still the same, ive uploaded the file so amyon ecan take a look and mabye see where i went wrong. my max units is in meters.
Car test max 9

#64

Karma are you planning to do somethig similar for animate MotorBikes?

Bye :slight_smile:

#65

Your settings are wrong.

Set Gravity to 9.8

Back Rigidity - 1000
Front Rigidity - 1000
Dumping - 300
Suface Cohesion - 0.5
Rubber resist - 3000
Sample/Step - 5

#66

Not yet. I am really busy.

#67

I have uploaded update of plugin. Some bugs were fixed.
Please download again: http://www.karba.eol3d.com/Plugins/MadCar

http://www.karba.eol3d.com/Plugins/MadCar/wheel2.mov

#68

hi karba!
your plugin is really fantastic (and the reason why i joined this board)

i’ve got a few questions though:

  1. you mentioned in one of your posts that using your plugin together with craft director tools might cause problems… is that so?.. because since i found this great new way of animating i feel i need more of this kind of plugins…

  2. is it possible to remove the madcar controller and just have the keyframed object left?

  3. for me it would make sense if the wheels are mirrored automatically from lets say the left side to the right, because then i could use one instance for all 4 wheels…

  4. how did you make these sun flares on all the shiny parts in your mustang animation?

  5. this mustang is great, just the leaves on the road need some movement (flying) when the cars is coming close.

  6. i bought a saitek cyborg joystick and it would be perfect if i could attach the gaspedal to the z-axis controller. it would make it easier to keep a constant speed.

thanks again for that great gem! that software changes a lot for me.
will.

#69

Karba, first of all thank you very much for this plugin - It will save me a ton of time in rigging and lose me a ton of time in PLAYING! :smiley: Nah man it’s awesome, thanks.

I have a question, what is the purpose of the axles? Do they provide stabilization? I have some that I put into my car but they look more like brakes on your tutorial.

My vehicle is fairly tall so I was rolling it a lot. I have decided to make a box shorter than my truck and link the box to the chasis thus lowering the center of gravity. Here are a couple renders from last night.

keeping information free > *

#70

OH - also I noticed sometimes the response time of the keyboard control is reeeeeallly slow. Doesn’t happen in every scene though - just the one with the gigantic 500x500 cellular displaced plane. Does anyone else get that?

edit: san someone post a screenshot of the trees everyone is talking about. I haven’t seen them.

#71

Could you post the VIDEO??? It seems to be so interesting :slight_smile:

The model looks good.

Bye

#72

@em3: I want to see that video, too, it looks awesome!

  • Jonas
#73

Hey guys thanks. I have a number of videos posted on youtube but the physics of the car arent quite right yet. I will link you when they are good - thanks

#74

DITTO!

This plugin is awesome! I have always worked on racecars, and race tracks. Your plugin now allows me to animate both.

I have done some fun testing and was able to assign reactor settings to the car frame and animate the vehicle interacting with other reactor objects. (link to reactor/rag doll test)

I agree with Peaceman, it would be nice to dump the animation to key frames, but thats the only thing I miss. Otherwise this plugin is amazing!

Here are some links to my madcar samples:

#75

My compliments, in the final one the animation looks really realistic :slight_smile:
MadCar Rocks!!

But, let me understand, did you use reactor for interaction between each car? Right?

Bye

#76 
 Thanks for the comment madm4tt, it’s a good render for default scan line render setup :)

   I only used reactor on the car that runs over the rag doll. In that last video, I had to be very careful and plan out what will happen. Because there is no collision. In that last “ten pack” video, I drove 10 different paths for each car. I planned out what I would do, then drive a sequence, saved it - then setup a new car. A few times while I was driving, I messed up and drove thought another car. It sucked when that happened because I had to stop that attempt and start over for that car.  I let a few small errors go, I think that worst one happens at 0:23 when the black car noise is about 5-6 inches in the rear of the 22 car – but it’s hard to notice based from the camera spot.
#77

Haha, that 10 car thing is awesome! More! (why do you cut away just when the fu part begins?)

  • jonas
#78

yeah that 10 car race was killer! You used the keyboard control yes? That must have taken forever, great effort.

One of my questions was on throttle control. With the mouse it’s easy but with the keyboard it’s all or nothing. Does the joypad work better?

#79 
 Thanks for the comments, sorry about the posting lag - I'm new and my posts need to be reviewed. As for the driving I have a few racing wheels. I like to use my old interact utlra PC racing wheel. Its small and works great because I can just pick it up and go. I also have a awesome TSW racing wheel, but Its bulky and dont want to lug it out.

I setup the drive time and steering reaction to be very slow so when I am driving it’s about at 1/4th speed. Also, by lagging the steering reaction you dont get that bad slowmo speedup effect…

 [img]http://www.surpluscomputers.com/images_product/ACC10545_LG.JPG[/img]
#80

I setup the drive time and steering reaction to be very slow so when I am driving it’s about at 1/4th speed. Also, by lagging the steering reaction you dont get that bad slowmo speedup effect…

what is the drive time setting?

I have to have my throttle set to 200 with a surf. stick(?) of .31 so I can get the thing to drift corners and spin out. I also have to crank the steering way up which is a problem for small “bumps” when your driving. Thanks for posting the controller, I will have to check out a controller too.

I have spent the last week of my evenings playing with the settings and still have yet to get it just right.