Hi All,
Last week I released my plugin for creating realistic vehicle animations directly in Unreal Engine 4 & 5.
I started this project in 2021 because a few years earlier, I was working on a project where the animators needed to animate the cars in an external tool and then import the animations into Unreal. This was an awkward and time-consuming workflow. I couldn’t believe this wasn’t a solved problem yet, so… I solved it 
Could I apply the detailed AI drivers we see in games to animation? We’re already using a real-time engine. Let’s go one step further. This allows the vehicles to be physically simulated, producing realistic vehicle handling, body roll, suspension, bouncing, and all the other subtle details that go into good-looking natural car motion. It also reduces manual keyframing and tweaks that animators would otherwise do by hand.
Vehicle AI in games is a deep topic with lots of research and papers written on it, but it can be difficult to expose a level of control over the driver to animators. I think I’ve struck a good balance between reducing the workload of the artist and allowing a significant level of artistic control.
This is the release trailer featuring a variety of animations produced with Rush Hour.
You can check out Rush Hour here https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/rush-hour-vehicle-animator
