more advanced vehicle template/example

hi,

a while ago in UDK i made this off road buggy

it worked pretty well but had a couple of issues, 1: the driveshafts didnt move, 2: if you look at where the wheels attach to the suspension as it moved up and down there was a slight gap because the wheels only moved straight up and down (just like UE4) but the suspension moved in an arc. I made a test vehicle to see if i could correct these issues in UE4, so basically make the wheels move in an arc with the suspension and get the driveshafts spinning with the wheels and it seems doable, heres a quick vid of my test.

as you can see it did work (i know the model sucks:p), even though it looks like the driveshaft and wheel are being controled by the same bone they actually have the own bones, the wheel is using the driveshafts bone to rotate around and the driveshaft is getting its rotation from the wheel, I am going to try and merge it all into 1 vehicle in UE4 to create a true fully functional vehicle but with this new mesh (Buggy MK2:)).


obviously I am still modelling it (I made it fully smooth just to show roughly what it would look like). if i manage to get the new car working I’m planning to release it as a template/example for people to take apart and play around with.

I was just wondering if anyone would be interested in this template/example or not?

You didnt even need to ask, that would be great! And it would be even better if you can also put some notes together on the things Ori Cohen didn’t touch in his tutorial series. :slight_smile:

That buggy looks so much fun to drive, btw!

, I think you’re simulating swing axles like those on 1960-1964 Chevrolet Corvair , not independent suspension.

what type of stuff did you have in mind?

it was:D

well yes and no.

what I show in the video is more of a proof of concept to make the wheel move in an arc with the suspension rather then a simulation. you see I started of testing a rear independant suspension setup so I had the wheel move in an arc but stay verticle, obviously there are other parts like the wheel hubs but I already knew how to do those. after I figured out the parts of the rear suspension I used the model to test some front suspension movement witch is what you see in the vid (forgot to disable the rotation of the driveshaft as I was using it as a wishbone:p).

still its nice to know that swing axels are easy to setup:)

great job so far looking forward to playing with the buggy.

personally i’ve only had a quick look at the vehicles stuff so your way a head of me :slight_smile:

Suspension settings, for instance, and how you’d set up a car with more(or less) than 5 gears. And how you should set center of mass so that people dont get confused like i did. :stuck_out_tongue:

just like old times;), I still need to work a few bits and pieces out but I think the biggest problem is going to be the steering, wish me luck:p

oh I also threw the polycount out the window this time so I am thinking it’s going to need 3 or 4 LOD’s (probably 4).

should be good:)

that one I can do right now, turns out its really easy to do in UE4:).

so for anyone that wants more or less than 5 gears, in the vehicle bP you’ll find this bit.


to add gears: just click on the plus to add more gears, I set the torque multiplier for gears 3-7 to 2.0 make the car go through the gears at the same speed (for more realistic gears the torque mutiplier should get smaller with each gear so it takes longer and accelerates slower the higher the gear your in).

this is the end result of the gear setup in the above pic.


to remove gears you would just need to click the “X” next to the gears (the settings would need to be changed to suite the vehicles needs).

oh and thats a good idea about the suspension settings and centre of mass:D