MadCar (Plugin for Car Animation)

#161

Hi Karba,

what kind of environment is the mustang animation created in? are those Max trees?

#162

if you dig back though this thread he talks about how the trees are another plugin he’s written, all procedural.

#163

I agree and I don’t. :slight_smile:

I’m having the same driving difficulties you are, so I’d definitely love a more precise way of controlling the car, or a more natural drive-feel.

However, the essence of the whole car-simulation thing is that if you manually move the car along a path, you can create car movement that’s not possible, and that’s when the animation looks fake. But with a simulation device that moves the car based on stearing input only, you get a much more physically correct result, which is why MadCar stuff looks so good.

  • Jonas
#164

hmmmm… im not so sure… yes i can rotate wheels on a car simply…get them to rotate accordingly depending on the speed and distance ect but were a car-simulation can bring is the realism of weight and suspension (if any one can figure out that in an expression let me know!) as an animator for the most part im directing and controling the movement that i need exactly so to give this plug in the ability to follow a easily controllable path would be sweet! Ive played with the Craft vehicle plug-in before and found it rediculously complex (i like my plug-ins idiot proof) were as this seems to be alot easyier (and again free!)

and is anyone else finding that when you try to hit enter on that wee onscreen menu to turn off the animation that it just dosnt work and keeps on driving until the end of the world and into the abbis?

#165

Which is exactly the opposite of SIMULATION, where you give the program parameters, which will then be exactly transformed into the animation. -Which is particularly useful with complex physical situations like bouncing objects or, for instance, cars.

If you want to animate 100 tumbling boxes exactly, go ahead, but it’ll be a lot quicker and photoreal if you simulate it. But by using simulation, you don’t have the power of an animator so say exactly where you want the object to land, because you’re not guaranteed that it’s even possible during the physical conditions, for the object to land exactly where you want it.

Same with MadCar. It’s a simulator. :slight_smile:

  • jonas
#166

Hi all,

get back to you,

finished my animation but i figured out there was something missing :

SLOW MOTION, so is it possible to set keys frames to slow down the animation and get some nice Slo mo to enhance the dynamic of the global sequence?

#167

Help me.

Why my car always runs backward?

How can I fix it?

#168

Reset your pivot point for your chassis maybe

#169

Yea, you need to figure out if it’s just the chassis pointing the wrong way, or if it’s the MadCar object going in reverse.

  • Jonas
#170

Oh, yes. now it’s fixed.

I don’t know how it does, but anyway now it works correctly.

Thank you so much, friends. :slight_smile:

It’s a really good plugin.

#171

After avoiding this for a while because it thought it would be a back-to-keyframe-fest, I gave it a shot yesterday and i’m really impressed. This is absolutely useful in production, you can effectively drive the car in slow motion for fine control rather than relying on an eratic physics simulation.

#172

first of all thanks so much for this wonderful plugin
can i get the help of the experienced people out here please? firstly i have modeled a racetrack and a car .now i cant see the entire race track in one screen so that makes it difficult for me to drive the car in real time , i mean i cant see the zoomed version of the entire track at once , so is there any way i can real time drive one part of the track , switch my viewport , drive another and so on… when i try to do it (drive a part , switch viewport then try to drive the next part ), my car just ignore the throttle and keeps on reducing speed till it reaches 0 then it goes in reverse direction
can some one add me on msn and help me out a bit?
farhan6318@hotmail.com thanks so much

#173

first of all thanks so much for this wonderful plugin
can i get the help of the experienced people out here please? firstly i have modeled a racetrack and a car .now i cant see the entire race track in one screen so that makes it difficult for me to drive the car in real time , i mean i cant see the zoomed version of the entire track at once , so is there any way i can real time drive one part of the track , switch my viewport , drive another and so on… when i try to do it (drive a part , switch viewport then try to drive the next part ), my car just ignore the throttle and keeps on reducing speed till it reaches 0 then it goes in reverse direction
can some one add me on msn and help me out a bit?

thanks so much

#174

sounds dumb, but cant you just link a camera inside the car?? and watch through the cam view port?? … :slight_smile:

Dave.

#175

we just released our little movie. All of the vehicles were done with Mad Car. Thanks Karba!

#176

After seen this topic since the beginning, I finally got some time to try this plugin and its just amazing! Really nice to build tracks and play around with the camera linked to the car.
Congratulations for this great plugin!

Cheers!

Flávio

#177

Hey guys /gals,
Ive been trying to get this to work for several weeks. Whenever i try to select the “update surface” button, it never updates even no matter what “plane-like” surface i use. I have read the directions over and over and this still haunts me. I have no other 3rd party plugins installed. Please help.
ocerrahyan@yahoo.com

#178

Gals / Guys,
I am able to set the car up with no problem, however after rigging the chassis, wheels, and axle /brakes and what not, it still does not give me an option to select a surface. Its completed greyed out. Even when creating a base plane object, it still does not give me the option. My version 9 is fully up to date. Any ideas? I have installed and reinstalled the dlo plugin several times just to confirm my sanity =)… please help.
ocerrahyan@yahoo.com

there is a video on you tube on how this is happening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjEXAuFXOBI

#179

All I have to say is WOW! Just friggin WOW! I was sittin here tryin to figure out how I was going to rig a car for an animation. I seen some videos on youtube where people used reactor to animate the car. Then I thought about maybe manual animating the car myself. Then I came across this thread. After downloading the plugin and getting it installed correctly I went to work. All I have to say is WOW. Most likely the best plugin I have. I’m using a logitec gaming contoller to drive the car in my scene and its just like playing a racing game… in wireframe view lol. I am currently doing a test render of a driving animation. The physics are neat. All you gotta do is make adjustments to the settings. I was doing donuts in reverse and stuff. I am so doing a drag race between the Ford Mustang and the 1969 Dodge Charger.

Excellent job on creating this plugin. :buttrock:

#180

Very Cool animation great work, from the models to the character design…

Bye