Rigging four link suspension for an off road vehicle

Support Animation and Rigging
#1

I have searched all over youtube and forums and can only really find tutorials for independent suspension, I am hoping someone on this forum can help me figure out how to rig this or point me to a tutorial I missed. This is a picture of the rear axle with links their mounting points and the springs/shocks with their mounting points. I hid the body of the vehicle to give a better view and I hid the front axles because I am still modeling links and steering for them(yes this is a 6X6 with two front axles). also I have not yet modeled the drive shafts. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

BlenderFourLinkSuspension
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The rear suspension is basically supposed to be long travel like on a Trophy truck or similar off road race truck.

#2

Hey, Welcome to BA, I totally missed your post, I will see if I have any links to tuts on this, but don’t be afraid to watch the ones on IRS - you can find usefull infoin them.If not I can mock up something for you. Do you have any rigging experience in Blender ?

#3

I don’t have much experience rigging. I was trying to follow an IRS rigging tutorial on YouTube and apply it properly to my mesh but found axle rotates in ways it should so I fiddled with it for a while and decided I should check a forum for help/info before reinventing the wheel trying to make it work if you know what I mean. The arms, shocks and springs work alright but I can’t seem to get it working correctly when one side moves without the other.

#4

Also I think I should mention the suspension is in full droop in this image.

#5

Well that is good you got it rigged that much, so prob what you need is a sort of ground detection system for each wheel. I’m just going to wing this without testing, I would add a bone that is the length of the axle - then duplicate it and flip its direction. Off of the tail of each of those bones, extrude bones down to where the tire touches the ground - so you’ll have a L shape. In side view extrude bones from the tails of those bones horizontally - so you’ll have an L shape looking from side view (those bones will be your ground detect bones & add a shrink wrap modifier to them). Now you need an axle bone, I would duplicate one of the first bones(the ones that run length wise) parent it to its original with keep off-set and give it a damped track constraint targeting the other bones head. Now you can parent what ever bone you have for the rear axle to that new axle bone - this works in my head but I am prob over looking or forgetting some thing - so I will try it if I get a chance. I did not find any tuts just for rigging solid axle suspensions - that is strange. :disappointed:
OOPs; realized I forot to mention parenting for the first 2 bones - I guess that would be to the main bone or what ever your using for the vehicle.

#6

I figured I would forget/over look something - they will need IK’s for the movement - I’m just gonna post a screen shot so if you have any Q’s just post back. The Green bone (axle)(damped track constraint) is hiding the axle.R bone.

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#7

What is IRS? i’m new here lol and i recently got into Blender again after making 2 models, a 'vette-camaro hybrid and a stunt map for a car made by SuperGloop (If you know python, i would appreciate it if you looked at my thread :slight_smile:)

#8

Sorry my friend, there is a much easier way to do this: :rofl:

Screenshot 2020-07-03 at 13.02.06
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@Terro If you want this to follow a path, it gets slightly more complicated, but all is explained in my tutorials here. You might need to look at the rear-steer one as well to get a double front axle setup.

Blend file: axles.blend (634.4 KB) Bone parenting and what does NOT inherit scale is important BTW, also look at all the IK Properties for each bone in the IK chain… I keyframed some movement so you can see it working.

Just shout if you need any help here. The wheels are weird so you can see them rotating, the formula for the wheel drivers is always var / wheel radius - make it negative to rotate the opposite way, var is the forward motion of the vehicle.

Cheers, Clock. :beers:

#9

Well, i can’t get a dual steer if i can’t even do a 6x6. Or is it possible the number of wheels has to be divisible by four? in that case, a 6x6 (dual rear, single front axle) does not work but an 8x8 would… do you wanna have a look at the files?

#10

Yeah show me the files.

Anything is possible, 6x6 with one steering axle, or 6x6 with two steering axles, here is my 16x16 with all steering axles:

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Cheers, Clock.

#11

(Python help, BGE) existing file, need help with modifications this is more python oriented, also how stable is combining rigging with the python stuff to make dynamic *suspension that is also controllable?

#12

also this is cool lol image

#13

Which blender version are you running, there is no BGE now… Otherwise all this can be done with Python, or Drivers.

Cheers, Clock.

#14

oh really? well that sucks, but i beleive i’m on 2.8.something. the one with the menu screen with the pigeon and the dude with a hair dryer.

#15

I beleive this is the version?

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#16

No BGE in 2.8 onwards… What do you actually want to do?

#17

sorry, 2.79 also what do you mean by that? what i want to do is experiment with blender’s simulation. i don’t know of a much better answer :l

#18

OK so you have BGE in 2.97, I just want to know what your simulation was exactly, if you want to control suspensions so they can bounce, etc. you can do that with python, but I have never used BGE and don’t have 2.79 anymore, so can’t help you with that…

#19

i could send you the files for 2.97…

#20

Yes, but they won’t work in 2.83… No BGE anymore, but I can see how you modelled the thing.