Panzer driving

I have been away from these forums for quite a while but recently got back into tinkering with Unity. I thought I'd share my current hobby project as I think there may be people out there who have interest in the subject.




Pacifist edition - strictly driving.

This is no Spintires but I am still fairly pleased in what I could achieve using Unity physics. The suspension has been built using PhysX components while the whole drivetrain is simulated separately with RK4. The wheel traction model is also custom but I might take another shot with WheelColliders.

Some hints to driving: You will have to engage the steering brake to turn the tank properly. This can be a bit tricky as it is like steering a car using only the handbrake - expect to spin easily. The 1st gear has a very high gear ratio compared to the rest and should be used for climbing the hills. As the terrain is very uneven you will probably only be using 3 gears at most.

I am still trying to figure out how to manage tank sliding on angled surfaces. With no access to PhysX internals I don’t really see a way to solve the problem and can only try and minimise the effects.

I only did the coding, credits for art go to:
- Torsten Heldmann for the PzII model (Free in Asset Store!)
- Manufactura K4 for the scene (From the Nature Pack)
- Sonory for the audio samples (Their sample diesel engine. Yes, I know panzers had petrol engines…)

Link to webplayerl (~70 Mb)

The controls are:
W Accelerate
S Brake
A, D Release left and right steering clutches, respectively.
Shift Engage steering brake (while pressing A or D)
Q, E Shift down, up
1-5 Change camera
R Reset tank to start position

 

Awesome job on this! Even though it's just driving I played around for about 20 minutes, it looks really good and the physics feel pretty accurate. I didn't really notice any sliding but I was also trying not to get the tank stuck or falling, so that could be why.

Either way, good job!

 

Thank you Josh for the kind words.

I used a bit of a hack in the web player to minimise sliding on slopes: Whenever you apply the brakes a spring joint is created, anchoring the tank in place. It will still slide a small distance and then stop. However, as it is a point constraint the tank can start to rotate in some situations. It is true that the sliding is hardly noticeable while driving, but in tank games the player should be able to perform accurate long distance shooting from stationary vehicles and even small crawl can get frustrating.

By the way, the web player has been updated with collisions added for the bigger trees. It is not possible to uproot the trees yet but at least they can be shaken.

 

This is fun, a bit confusing at the start but it's great nonetheless!

 

It is really cool i mean the UI is simple but show you lot of info and it is quite simple to control it .

 

Thank you TwinFox, I really enjoyed driving the Pzr II around this tight little map. I like the controls very much, once I got used to them (5mins) it seemed very intuitive. A beautiful map and Pzr II model with great physics... Thank you!

I look forward to more.

Jeff