Getting static mesh to move and react to obstacles

Development Programming & Scripting
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1

I am super new to Unreal Engine and what I am looking for with this question is either explanation of how to do or perhaps better yet which resources I may be needing in order to figure it out myself.

I’m trying to create a simple game to test things out. I’ve create a bike:

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It has physics constraints to keep the wheels in place and limit how much they can turn etc.

So what I want to achieve is the following:

  • It should simulate physics, which it already does. But obviously it falls over all the time. I’d like to make it attempt to be in an upright position, but tipping a bit when affected by other objects.
  • When hit by another object with a certain force I want it to “ragdoll” and just fall over and let physics have it’s way with it.
  • Further down the line I want an AI to be able to control this one. Perhaps a beginning is to have input actually make it move. How does this even work? Do I just add force to it? Do I make the wheels spin and physics does the rest?

I’m using Blueprints.

I’ve searched for videos and tutorials, but I don’t think I know the correct keywords to use and is now reaching out here. Any help is appreciated.

Thank you :slight_smile:

2

Most things like this are not static meshes but actually skeletal meshes, which have animations. For most of the mechanics you mention, an animation will play via an animbp then for an example such as crashing you might have logic where a collision box triggers ragdoll behaviour. Over all this would be a much simplier and probably cheaper (performance optimization) method of achieving what youre describing. This method of using animations would also work well with ai down the line with a lot less issues to be encountered- hope that helps

3

Thank you for your answer. I’ll try to look into skeletal meshes and hopefully get an understanding of what I need to do. It sounds like the right thing based on your description.