Vehicle rig

[dfcorona]

What do you guys use or recommend for Max for a vehicle rig and simulation? Currently I use drivemaster 1.4 to follow spline paths. But it's always a headache. Always end up with issues especially with curves, car isn't smooth but rachety on a curve no matter how heavy I make the spline. I tried mad car, but that was a real headache just to set up. Hoping to find something use friendly and good.

[mase]

This one is quite old but does the trick: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/vehicle-rigger

You have to detach car wheels from body and then select those through the script. Have tested it on some animations in the past and it works.

[dfcorona]

This one is quite old but does the trick: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/vehicle-rigger

You have to detach car wheels from body and then select those through the script. Have tested it on some animations in the past and it works.

Thanks Mase, I saw that one before but it looked like it doesn't work with brake calipers. So for close up animation it would look to fake. Or did you find a way for the brake calipers to work?

[mase]

In my case brake callipers were not that important. I suppose you could also detach those and link them to the wheels but only on positional values.

[aaouviz]

drivermaster would have been my answer, but seeing as you're not happy with this, I'm not sure there is a better solution other than tyflow (which is not recommended, btw)

If you find a good solution, please do let me know :)

[nauticus25]

Looks like Craft Director Studio might handle details like brake calipers. I don't have experience with that portion of it, but it works well for handling the offtracking of tractor trailers for our traffic animations.

[dfcorona]

Thank you all for the help. Drive Master definitely need updating. I tried contacting the dev on it and issues but didn't receive any answer. The bake key is not working in it either.  Vehicles are such a big part of archviz I'm surprised a company hasn't made a better easy to use solution. I actually contacted Anima  back in the day to ask if they had any plans for vehicles, that would have been great because it could work dynamically with there characters. Drive master has been my go too, but I've had a good amount of issues. It is really finicky with splines.  I've had to rebuild splines a few times till I get a smooth animation, no sensible reason why either. It just decided to work or it doesn't.

[James Vella]

I've had to rebuild splines a few times till I get a smooth animation, no sensible reason why either. It just decided to work or it doesn't.

Out of curiosity, did you normalise the spline?

[dfcorona]

I've had to rebuild splines a few times till I get a smooth animation, no sensible reason why either. It just decided to work or it doesn't.

Out of curiosity, did you normalise the spline?

Yes I normalized it even down to 1" Verts. Even converted to Nurbs and tried that. After few recent attempts remaking and normalizing the spline I now have a smooth car path animation. Have no clue why...

[James Vella]

The last time I did something like this was 8 years ago, I remember something along the lines of having a normalised spline, reset xform, then controlling the speed through the curves of the road with the plugin so that everything else is 'linear'. Less variables meant the plugin could do its job properly. The job didnt require detail down to the caliper level but I remember doing quite a few tests to get to that point.

[dfcorona]

The last time I did something like this was 8 years ago, I remember something along the lines of having a normalised spline, reset xform, then controlling the speed through the curves of the road with the plugin so that everything else is 'linear'. Less variables meant the plugin could do its job properly. The job didnt require detail down to the caliper level but I remember doing quite a few tests to get to that point.

Yeah I've done all of that and cannot tell you why sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.