Bouncing Vehicle - It's out of control!

#1 I had the same problem a while ago... didn't spend much time on vehicles yet, but I think the problem was one of the following things:

1) My vehicle had only 1 wheel. I just wanted a quick export to test it, so I just put one wheel in the middle... (was kind of funny to drive, kept on sliding on its side lol)
2) the terrain was heavely modfied with the manual tools. Actaully I built most of the terain manually. The problem didn't occur in another map I created with a heightmap.
3)Its none of the above things, and its just a bug that needs to be fixed ;)

#2 Things to check:

Mass nodes, do you have them, and do they make sense? Or is it skewed somehow?

Is you are using Milkshape, is the MODEL centered on the origin (the wheels displace themselves from the objects ceter "space" not quite where you put the wheel nodes in milkshape)

Is the "bottom" of the chassis near or flush with the X-Y plane? Makes a difference where the model is in the modeller relative to the origin (again, I only have milkshape).

#3 I don't have any mass nodes. Are those vertices? I was just using the rectangle that was included as the stock model.

I am using milkshape, I didn't have the money/didn't want to pirate 3dsmax.

I know what you mean by centering the model. That was the first thing I tried.

I checked off all the ideas in your list. The last I check was the x-axis. I have moved the model up and down on the x axis. Still the problem infects the very fabric of my being.

Perhaps I will need to edit source code, anyone have ideas?

#4 add a joint, call it mass.

put it where you expect the center of mass of the vehicle to be :)

No source should need edited, I've done 5 or 6 test vehicles in Milkshape, maybe post your MS3D file and we can have a look?

#5 I'll try that. and I am interested in your ms3d file as well.

Issues such as this interest me.

Did you find the "mass" joint in the docs? If not. Where did you find it? How many other joints am I missing that could be used to better the vehicle? How come they were not included in the stock model? Are we just supposed to "know" this?

Or am I just not looking at the documentation.

-Daniel

#6 The center of mass joint doesn't do anything, at least not that I know off. That was something I had working originally, but it was disabled when Dave integrated in the rigid body class.

The center of mass is the origin of the shape, where ever the 0,0,0 point is in either MS or Max.

Couple notes...

- It's good to have the center of mass near the top of the spring. Low center of mass gives better stability.

- Keep the top of the spring nodes inside the collision box. This way the springs don't end up underground or insides things when the car flips over.

#7 In MS, the spring nodes are the hub (hub0, hub1...) joints, right ?

#8 yes, hub 0 is the front right, hub1 front left, hub2 rear right, 3 rear left.

I think :)

#9 Thanks Tim,

I understand your center of mass idea. I'll try the spring nodes idea tonight.

Thank you as well Edward. Would you mind putting up a .ms3d of your acclompished stable car?

-Daniel

#10 Hey guys,

I tried all of your ideas. Still no stable :(. When I get home tonight I'll post some pictures of my milkshape model so you guys can see what I am doing wrong.

Thanks for your help.

#11 Well! after many hours of work, I finally got it stable, able to roll, and fuh-ly!

However! It can still do it's annoying out of control spins, so, I'll just keep trying to figure that one out.

Thanks for your help guys. It is a partial victory!

#12

Quote:- Keep the top of the spring nodes inside the collision box. This way the springs don't end up underground or insides things when the car flips over.

This is verry important LoL... Just made that change in the Model I've been importing into Torque and it solved a large problem I'd been having with the vehicle just sticking to things, shooting off into space or shooting down through the ground.

#13 Yup, I have also noticed the "crazy flying" affect hapening when any of the spring dampings are set to high or too low.