My thinking was if something isn’t present in the engine, then we may have to think about creating it.
I recently required a blueprint callable C++ plugin, which could read 3d point data from a file and build splines from them. I couldn’t do something like that with blueprints, so C++ was the only way. I learned a lot, firstly about creating a plugin for Unreal (which I’d never done before) but the plugin went through numerous iterations and with the AI help, was able to build something which was very useful and very specific to my own project.
What I’m trying to say is I’ll take help where I can get it.
With more thought and reading last night, I decided that trying to add cylindrical collision to the engine was probably hubris, and that using a custom convex mesh of a cylinder was really the best way to go. I’ve only tested on flat, non-complex ground surfaces for now, but a cylinder authored in Maya with about 100 subdivisions is working pretty well in terms of rolling ability and performance. My previous custom collision meshes had less subdivisions and were causing issues.
In my own project, I’m trying to rely on ‘natural’ physics where I can apply them- if something ultimately needs to be canned, then that’s ok- but it’s not my philosophy here. The bike isn’t a car with invisible wheels… it can fall over and requires the player to shift his/her weight, like a real bike. Using physics constraints at various points provides lots of great stuff- like realistic suspension, acceleration and braking. Tweaking physics surfaces with various levels of friction is a very intuitive way to handle riding on different surface types and the result is dynamic, and looks and feels natural- the way the back tire skips and jumps a bit under braking/sliding as it loses and regains traction.
While the physics route might be a headache, in the end it’s the same approach you are basically advocating - ‘Why not stick to…’. Whether using physics or a more controlled ‘canned’ approach, ‘basically impossible’ is always going to be the final answer, so why not have some fun with whatever route you’re taking to get there?
Cheers 