Wheeled Vehicle Rigging
by Matt Sanders · in Torque Game Engine · 12/29/2004 (6:33 am) · 2 replies
Ok I have searched all over the Forums, Resources, The Book I wasted my money on that is no where near as helpful as the great Torque community. I just want to find some good organized information on what needs to be done (both with rigging in milkshape and with script in Torque) to make a wheeled vehicle. I want to make an 4 wheel ATV and I would like the suspension and wheels to act with the terrain. I have seen this done so I know it is possible and I have read about the basic joints and joint names needed but I have not found anything that describes the springs or if I have to rig the bones to the modelled shocks. any help is more then appreciated...
I am also interested in how to script the mounting and dismounting when a charater walks up to the vehicle and say presses the b key or something.
Finally my last question on the topic is how would you go about implamenting the headlights and tail lights....
I am also interested in how to script the mounting and dismounting when a charater walks up to the vehicle and say presses the b key or something.
Finally my last question on the topic is how would you go about implamenting the headlights and tail lights....
#2
12/30/2004 (9:21 am)
Thank you very much that gives me a little more confidence to mess with alot of it myself. I like the tail light Idea and think I can probably come up with some script to make it switch the texture when you press the brake button. Sounds cool I will start messing with it some more. If anyone else has useful info I am sure many people would be happy to see it organized in one post rather then the hunt and gather method. thanks again. 
Torque 3D Owner Adam
Adam deGrandis
Its not finished right now, but here is a little tip in the mean time. The hub nodes AUTOMATICALLY follow the terrain and bounce around. The only thing you need to animate is the axle and shocks so they follow the hub nodes.
If you have the book, just follow the example in there.
As far as the mount/dismount scripting goes, Im not entirely sure about that since Im an artist and not a scripter. I just use the script from the BraveTree car pack.
Head lights and tail lights *I think* can be added by just adding mount nodes to the front and back and then mounting lights. Again, though, I have no idea how to make that actually happen since I think it would involve some pretty nutty scripting. The BraveTree pack uses IFL animation for the tail lights (which allows for different states of the texture. The tail are normally textured with the "off" image, but when you brake it switches to the "on" texture), but I don't know how to do that in Milkshape, as I use 3ds Max.
So add the hub nodes in the mean time and my tutorial should be finished within a month. :) Hope this helps.