How do I make a static mesh Wheelchair model move with vehicle movement component?

Development Asset Creation
1

Hey guys!

So I have an idea for I game that I want to prototype. It involves a man driving a wheelchair. So I got a model from the asset store, it is a static mesh. I tried making a character BP and putting a vehicle movement on it with throttle and steering input. The thing would not move at all. I tried using a vehicle BP and doing the same but still the character does not move. I sat a couple of hours last night but nothing worked. At last I used the starter project for driving games and just put the wheelchair on top of the car and made the car invisible. Not really what I wanted to do.

So I am guessing that since my model is a static mesh, the vehicle movement does not work since the model does not have wheels? I never thought the movement itself came from the wheels but I can see no other reason for my BPs not working.

Right now I have a model that I could open up in Blender and maybe rig in some way, but I am not really sure what to do. Do I need to separate the wheels and make them into separate objects?

I would appreciate any help or suggestion you might have :slight_smile:

2

I worked out a simple movement using actor local offset but the chair is floating in the air. Anyone know how to fix this? The mesh is zero-ed in the transform so I don’t think that is it…

3

First obvious thing - if it’s a static mesh it is not a vehicle.

Second obvious thing, Yes, the wheels are required for a vehicle to move.

Take the model to blender, add an armature. you need 5 bones: Roow, Weel L, Wheel R. - steering l, steering r

Separate out the wheelchair wheels, move the bone for each wheel to the exact center pivot of the wheel - you need to be mathematically perfect or the motion will be bumpy.

Put steering L and Steering R bones at the same place as the rear wheels, and move them forward so they sit at the front of the wheelchair - this is where turning will happen.

Export out as a skeletal mesh.

Import to engine.

Rig as a car - you’ll need to create the wheel types and all of that.

The trick is that the front wheels are invisible. so you won’t need a mesh.
The rear wheels are actually there and will turn.

if you have experience rigging vehicles this would take approx 30. without experience it’s not the easiest thing. watch this series.Vehicles: Overview & Car Setup | 01 | v4.2 Tutorial Series | Unreal Engine - YouTube
For rigging the car
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/…ion/index.html
andhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=mPlVrq8wtSIand
UE4 Blender Vehicle Basic Setup a - YouTube
and this discussion with more links.
https://forums.unrealengine.com/deve…blender-to-ue4

NOTE: this was written under the assumption the wheelchair wasn’t a 4 wheel model already. everything still applies.

4

Thanks alot, MostHost!

I have my work cut out for me :slight_smile: