Hi ! After reading the theme of the next Release of Blenderart Magazine (cars modelling), I remembered that I hadn’t written a tutorial about the method that I found some months ago for automated cars animation. So I have finally done it, and it is available here in PDF format, with a blend file provided.
http://3d-synthesis.com/tutorials/Cars_Animation_Tutorial.pdf
http://3d-synthesis.com/blender_miscellaneous/Cars_Autodrive.blend
I hope that it will be understandable, ant that you will find it usefull.
I plan to make an other one for motorcyles, but it will more difficult, and I have few time, so wait and see !
Happy Christmas !
Philippe.
Hi !
I have updated the links above with the new tutorial including the deformation of the tires in the curves.
Philippe.
Hey Roubal thanks alot…this is will be an additional learning material for me…thanks for sharing…
Hi ! Thank you for your comment, Ecgillboy !
I have spent several days on this tutorial, and I had the fear that nobody will read it.
I’ll try to improve the method, and create an other tutorial for motorcycles if I find some time.
As my english is not as good as I’d wish, could you tell me if the tutorial is fully understandable ?
Your opinion could help me to improve the next tutorial !
Philippe.
1 Like
I’m gonna say that this is an ingenious solution for car animation. This is really, really cool. People probably aren’t reading it because it’s in the ‘animation help’ forum and they think from the topic title that you want help creating a magical animation system, instead of the fact which is that you have created the neatest little driving package ever. You should put this up in the tutorials forum or something, it’s cool. :]
Thanks, you’re probably right, I should change the title…
Well, after a trial, I discovered that the title of the topics can’t be edited,
So, deleting this topic and writing an other one could be the solution.
Philippe.
You have a point, BlackBoe, but people who recognize the name ROUBAL read his posts where ever they appear, and benefit from it. This is a wonderful piece of work, ROUBAL, I didn’t have any trouble understanding it, and will be working through it sometime soon. Thanks for giving so much to the Blender community.
Philippe: Thank you for this well-thought out and easy to understand tutorial. It is a masterful mix of real world observations and problem-solving in Blender. I can’t wait to make some cars now.
I believe there is a minor typo on p. 12. The text should say “…apply a Locked Track constraint to the car body, aiming the Empty Body Tilt.” The figure 21 shows the correct entry.
Thank you, Sir! Good stuff here. Now I’m back to the drawing board …
Hi ! Thanks for your comments. I have corrected the error page 12, and added 4 pages.
Now, the Steering Wheel is animated in the curves and you can use it to animate automatically the car driver !
You 'll have only to concentrate your efforts on facial animation of your character and details, leaving the driving task to the system.
The Example Blend file has also been updated. You will find the new feature on layer 7.
Philippe.
Now I am stumped. I do not know how to parent the Empty Rear to the vertex group “rear axel” which is part of the arrow mesh (the little square between the rear wheels.) I have checked the Wiki and the release notes, but if it’s in there, I missed it. I took a look at Cars_Autodrive.blend, but, ROYBAL, you have no vertex groups set up for the Arrow mesh, and Empty Rear simply says Par: Arrow in the links panel, yet the parent-child dashed line clearly goes to that little plane inside the rear axel! How did you do that? Especially when you have no Arrow vertex groups!
EDIT: Never mind, I discovered how to do it. 
First I parent the empty to the arrow object with Control P. Then, I select the arrow object and go into edit mode, then select the little rear axel plane, whether its a vertex group or not. Then I move the parenting to the selected vertices with another Control P. voila! [Is this documented anywhere? I have surely overlooked it. I mean, anywhere besides the hot key reference, which is where I eventually found it?] /EDIT
Happy New Year Everybody !
Hi Orinoco !
Vertex Parenting doesn’t need to create vertex groups. You only have to select the Empty, and Keeping the Shift Key pressed, select also the Arrow Mesh. Switch in Edit mode, and you will be able to select the four vertices of the Arrow Mesh that you want to use as parents for the Empty Rear, or the Empty Front. Then hit CTRL-P . The only feature available is Make Vertex Parent. Enable the choice with the mouse, or Hit the Enter Key, That’s all !
Philippe.
Roubal I see no problem with the turotial…it’s been expalined well enough…thanks again…Happy New Year everyone…!!!
Thanks for amazing TUT!
Good tutorial. I had a problem figuring out the vertex parenting, but after reading your other post it completely cleared it up. very good and pretty simple once you get the hang of it.
Awesome work man!
Good to see you back online. When you look at the grand scheme of things…The Crosswalk has done so much! We may be far from an animation movie, but You, Sketchy, AlexG, and Calvin have come so far in your own style and talent. I am quite impressed by what has spawned due to this project.
I cant belive this isn´t sticky…
I’m doing this tut, it went nice and smooth but now i’m having some trouble with the wheel rotation IPO, i can set it up just fine, but when i go back to frame 1 i find that the Z axis needs about another 1/4 of the rule’s length to be perfectly vertical, i noticed the value of 1490 in your tutorial, but mine raises to 5500, might it be a matter of scale ?, i cant make it work right no matter what i do.
Plus, Philippe, i’ve sent you an email about a permission.
Thanks in advance to anyone that could help.
I would like to demand someone make this as an video tutorial. I have tried to read this now some days, but my success has not been very great.
The blend file no longer exists?
http://www.3d-synthesis.com/blender_miscellaneous/Cars_Autodrive.blend
Thank you for this tutorial!
I did not understand how to set the dRot Y key.
I’m still a beginner in Blender and totaly new to animations with it.
A Video Tutorial for me would be mutch easier to follow.
Would you do one ?
Kind Regards
Alain