Edy's Vehicle Physics - official thread

Hi @Edy,
knowing about the problems with WheelColliders in Unity 5, (and I'm sorry for asking again)... what is you ETA for EVP 5 stable (maybe including your own suspension simulation)?

Thanks again.

 

EVP5 stable should be ready in two months or less if possible. I'm attending custom support requests these weeks, so the progress is a bit slower right now.

Suspension simulation is not expected to be ready anytime soon. This is the hardest part of a vehicle simulation, and that's the reason for which my vehicle physics products still depend on the WheelCollider. I'm considering several possible approaches that may or may not work. Ideally, I'd need more of the PhysX internal data to be exposed in Unity. As you can guess, Unity devs are rather reluctant to expose anything unless there is enough demand and/or clear usage cases. I don't think they consider this case a priority, so I'm just focusing on using what is available now.

 

Can you look into integration with the unity standard assets mobile controller? I have been having weird issues with the gearbox when trying to set the inputs to be controlled by touch joysticks/buttons on VP PRO

 

I bought this a while ago and didn't have a chance to check it out when I bought it. But now I am trying to use it with Unity 5 and I can't get results anything like the videos on the asset store nor anything like GTA (not even remotely close). Where's the smoke, tire tracks and physics like we see in the first video? Is this just that those videos were made with Unity 4.x.x and everything is not fully functional with Unity 5? If so, will it be fixed soon? This is very disappointing.

Edit: Watching the videos again I see that they are from 4 years ago on Unity 3.x.x. Very misleading.

 

I am working on multiplayer game.
i do not understand the line of code which is in CarWheelFriction script can you please convert it into c#
staticvarMCforward = [ 0.561, 1.114, 1.659, 2.195, 2.724, 3.246, 3.759, 4.266, 4.765, 5.257, 5.741, 6.219, 6.690, 7.154, 7.611, 8.062, 8.506, 8.944, 9.376, 9.801, 10.223, 10.636, 11.044, 11.443, 11.839, 12.229, 12.614, 12.990, 13.363, 13.731, 14.095, 14.452, 14.805, 15.153, 15.496, 15.834, 16.167, 16.495, 16.819, 17.138, 17.453, 17.772, 18.078, 18.380, 18.667, 18.970, 19.260, 19.545, 19.826, 20.103 ];

 

when changing your CarWheelFriction to c# there may be method DrawFrictionCurve in that method there is a parameter which have datat ype of CarFrictionCurve gives error of could not found. Can you tell me why this is happening.

 

It's on the road map.

Thanks for your feedback. I apologize for the inconvenient. EVP for Unity 5 is in Beta stage, as clearly stated at both the package's description and the product's documentation. Smoke, tire tracks, improved audio, etc are being ported from the Unity 4 version, and should be ready in the next beta. As physics changed so radically from Unity 4 to Unity 5, the new vehicle physics in EVP are different than the Unity 4 version. As for the new version, I re-designed and re-implemented the entire system from scratch. I'll record new videos for the new versions.

 

@danish115 You don't need to port the old EVP package to C#. Starting at version 4.4 the JS scripts can be used together with C# components directly. Please read the Readme file for details.

Also, note that the latest EVP5 version for Unity 5 is 100% C# code.

 

Just to show you guys how powerful Edy's physics and as a tribute to this great Asset pls accept (This is Unity5 btw)

Also I have created my own AI using command pattern to your vehicle controller, Edy.. It follows way points and somehow do a great job as a racer YAY! (still needs some finishing touches though)

If any of you want to try the game check the video's description.

 

Hi Edy,

I've owned your product for a long time and love it. I realize a lot of things have changed with unity 5 but I do have 2 questions about how to best achieve two pieces for an arcade style racer I'm making.

1. In my game there will be a lot of jumps where the vehicle is in the air. I'm trying to make the vehicle unrealistically stable when it is in the air (fly level with the ground) and was wondering the best way to achieve this? The first thing I noticed was that all the vehicles were front heavy and would fall forward when in air. I tried moving the center of mass further back in the car and while this did effect the car when on ground it did not change anything when in the air. Reducing the aero drag helped some but not enough and had other side effects. If there is a combination of sliders that you know of certainly let me know (I suspect there is not). If there isn't is there a hook or place in the code where I can essentially turn your simulation off only when the car is in the air and then turn it back on when the vehicle hits the ground again so I can stabilize the vehicle manually in air with my own code?

2. My game is pretty fast paced with sharp turns so that cars would normally have to take the curves slowly or slide off the road. However, this doesn't match the style of the game so I will instead bank most of the turns. When I use EVP on highly banked turns (greater than 45 degrees) the vehicles only very slightly get an assist from the bank. I realize EVP only makes the physics "realistic-looking" but I'm looking for advice on the best way in your opinion to "assist" EVP on the banked curves. Should I apply a secondary force in the direction of the bank on the car or forcibly turn the wheels a bit more via code or try another approach? Obviously, it can be accomplished in different ways just looking for advice on what you think would work best in combination with EVP.

Thanks for any info you can provide.

 

I look forward to the new versions and new videos hopefully showing the same type of physics and effects using Unity 5. Thanks.

 

Hi @Edy,

Ever since the Unity released 5.0.2 my vehicles start 'bouncing' at high speeds as if going over bumps. It worked perfectly before. I saw that they say they fixed somethings with wheel colliders in the release notes.

Have you any advice for this?

Thanks for your time

 

@glitchers Can you reproduce the problem in the Demo scene? In your project, try reducing the damper values of the suspension.

 

Hi @Edy ,

I was wondering if you had any pointers for my question a few days ago.

 

@greggtwep16 sorry, I missed your message.

1. I think your best choice is to increase Angular Drag in the rigidbody. You may either keep it at a constant value, or apply it only when 2-4 wheels are lifted.

2. Physics are realistic about that, so the assistance vehicles receive from the banked corners is realistic. Maybe it has something to do with the configuration? Try increasing the tire friction and/or the aerodynamic downforce.

 

Hey! I heard that you put Head, Neck and Cockpit G Force Simulation in the Cockpit View. Does Neck Simulation have Angle Rotation?

 

That is part of the Unity 4 package. It used a Configurable Joint with a very small rigidbody for simulating the head inertia. The configuration parameters (angles) are those available at the ConfigurableJoint component.

In Unity 5 things have changed a lot in physics. My first experiments trying to port this setup have resulted in weird behaviors. I'll keep trying.

 

I believe your banked corners might backfire due to a bug in the wheel collider in unity3/4. Basically this bug makes the vehicle accelerate like crazy up hills. The bug makes vehicles maintain horizontal momentum going uphill, meaning that the vertical momentum is just added to the horizontal momentum resulting in crazy acceleration. My game has a relatively flat road with a hilly landscape. I worked my way around it by adjusting max speed for offroad driving, but in a situation with banked corners this might be a problem. I believe Edy has mentioned this bug earlier in this thread so do a search. Good luck!

 

This problem is no longer present in Unity 5.

 

I'm messing around in the demo scenes and seeing something odd. If I get one of the cars in motion, they seem to continue rolling without any further input without slowing down. Are there settings that I can turn up that will bring the car to rest sooner? 'Aero Drag' flattens the motion of everything, including when the wheels aren't grounded, so not really what I'm looking for.

 

Rolling friction is yet to be implemented in Edy's Vehicle Physics. It will be included in the support for different surface types (asphalt, grass, sand, etc).

Meanwhile, the workaround I can suggest you is to keep a minimum brake torque value applied when the vehicle is grounded.

 

Thanks for the info. I'm getting mixed results with the minimum brake, vehicles tend to spin out when off the throttle and turning in to a bend.
Do you have a roadmap that you work from? I couldn't find any other reference to rolling friction or surface types within the later parts of this thread, and I was curious where it lay with regards to other work.

 

Hi Edy,

I'm trying to make a game that's similar to something like KBS or Besiege with building mechanics, currently the construction is complete and I am able to add wheels to my constructions while playing, but I am using the Unity Wheel Collider, which is the worst thing I've ever used, anyways, it goes nuts and makes the car fly all over the place, so I've decided to switch to your system in high hopes that it will work better

I need some advice on what to do in this situation, in the videos it's an older version of the system and the "carWheels" scrips no longer exists, so I'm assuming I would only need the CarController script? When I am using the wheelcollider, is there anything I should change? As I can't see how it will differ from Unity's default with the wheel.

Currently at runtime it goes like: Add Wheel > Gets parented to Rigidbody object > Adds wheel collider > Wheelcollider gets positioned.

Thanks!

 

Check out the user guide for the new version:

http://www.edy.es/dev/vehicle-physics/user-guide/

A video is included that describes how to set up a vehicle from scratch in 8 minutes. Hope this helps!

 

@Edy, great job!
Will this awesome asset affect doors, windows and other part of car? Say a car will get damaged, will this asset affect it's parts (like doors fallen down, wheels get detach or get flat, windshields get broken) or something like that? If no. would you recommend a way to get those things work along with your asset.

 

@D4N005H I recommend you to use spare parts with their own rigidbody. Connect them to the vehicle's rigidbody via Character Joints. Then specify a maximum break force so they would detach on impacts.

 

Hello Edy,

I imported the plugin and messed around with the demo. It seems that the cars seem to flip a lot easier than before. is there something wrong with this version?

I remember a long time ago you had skid marks in the demo. But i can't see them working in current version. Has that been removed?

do you have a feature road-map you can share with us?

Kind Regards
TechiTech

 

I'm following the tutorial, I like that it's only essentially one script now However, I'm having some unusual behavior when using the adjust wheelcolliders to mesh locations, the wheel colliders will go near, but not ontop, and if I try to manually place them then they will move the mesh too. I've tried with the wheel meshes on both 0,0,0 (child objects) and with other positions.

Also, how can I rotate a wheel if it's not parented to an object with a rigid body? I'm going to need wheels in a near-omnidirectional way

 

Hi Edy!

I was looking around for a good vehicle controller and your package seems to be exactly what I need! However, I have a few questions.

First I'd like to second TechiTech's question about a feature road-map: what features are currently not in the Unity 5 version? It would be helpful to know rather than discovering it while messing with the demos.

And second, from now until a stable version for unity 5 is out, do you think there will be any major code refactorizations? That is, do you foresee any big reorganization of your layout that would require anyone making custom scripts now to make big changes to their logic to fit the stable version? Heh, I hope that question makes sense.

Thank you for your time! :]

 

Previous version had a component "Anti-Roll bar" for stabilizing the car. In new version you must adjust the property "Anti-roll" in the Vehicle Controller component.

Skidmarks are yet to be ported to the new version. Remember that EVP is still in Beta stage. I expect to include them in the next version.

I'll publish the EVP roadmap as soon as possible. I'll try to have it ready before going to Unite Europe.

WheelColliders must reside in independent GameObjects, without children or meshes. Also, the actual wheel objects (meshes) must have their local origin configured at their respective centers. Try following the video tutorial using the same Bus mesh included in the package. Ensure to reproduce the same hierarchy as shown at the video.

This is not possible in Unity 5 atm. Physic wheels are raycasts that point vertically down with respect to the rigidbody they're attached to, no matter their orientation (local or inherited). The only way would be to construct each wheel as an independent vehicle with a single wheel, then attach four of these objects to another "main vehicle" object using joints. Not a trivial task though.

 

Thank you! I'm preparing the roadmap.

There will be some significant changes with regards to the Center Of Mass. A separate CoM object won't be required anymore. Instead, the position of the center of mass will be configured directly in the Vehicle Controller. This will require to re-configure the CoM in the actual vehicles, but it will be much easier and intuitive.

Aerodynamic App Point Offset will also be removed. Instead, there will be new controls for setting the front-rear balance of the vehicle in many settings: tire friction, brakes, drive power, aerodynamics. This will greatly simplify the process of configuring and balancing the vehicles, as each setting will modify the behavior in a predictable way.

Actual version is stable enough for rigging the vehicles and doing general setup such as motor, brakes, speed, etc. Configuring the vehicle's reactions and gameplay will be a lot easier with the next version.

 

Hi Edy,

Will EVP5 include gearbox and clutch with shifting gears in anytime soon like Beta 4 or 5? And fully working gear ratios. In version 4 I've found gears but they are in CarSound so looks like physics is not affected by them in v4. Is it going to be changed in version 5? Or gearbox support will be still limited and I need to look at VPP - if so, which edition? Standard or Pro.

I currently use UnityCar 2.2 for my drag racing game, nothing complex, just a straight ride with manual shifting and a couple of vehicle config parameters like power in HP, aerodynamic drag and grip. Due to poor support I'm looking for a new physics package. Which one of yours is better suited for such kind of game? EVP5 or VPP as I use Unity 5.

Thanks!

 

Hi Edy! And other gurus! =)

First of all I want to thank you for great package
I'm using last EVP5 package and seems faced with some physics bug (not an EVP but Unity) and want to ask some workaround.

The bug described here. I've got similar crash with something like next exception:

04BD66CF (Mono JIT Code) (wrapper managed-to-native) UnityEngine.WheelCollider:GetGroundHit (UnityEngine.WheelHit&)
04BD63D1 (Mono JIT Code) EVP.VehicleController:UpdateSuspension (EVP.WheelData)
04BD5CA7 (Mono JIT Code) EVP.VehicleController:FixedUpdate ()

I do all my scene changes with FixedUpdate but it doesn't help. Issue appears when my vehicle collides with mine, mine explodes and destroys just under the wheelcollider. I tried to deactivate mine object instead of destroying and delay destroying to several seconds, but this just reduce crashes a little and not seems like a proper solution

Thanks!

 

Hey Edy, your package was just featured here:
http://assetsreporter.com/2015/07/06/edys-vehicle-physics/
We love it - thanks for the great work

 

EVP5 will include a simple gearbox add-on (maybe around beta 5). It will simply modify the parameter MaxSpeedForward in the Vehicle Controller depending on the engaged gear. Clutch might be simulated as temporarily setting MaxDriveForce to zero. You can already experiment with this workaround by implementing your own script that modifies those parameters.

In EVP the engine is simulated as just a force curve without inertia. This won't change. Depending on the actual level of realism required for your project, you might prefer to use VPP. VPP implements a complete engine simulation with torque and power curve in HP, inertia, several tire friction models, and realistic clutch. You may even use real-world data directly.

Thanks! I've been confirmed by Unity devs that Unity 5.2 beta 2 will include a bunch of fixes for the WheelCollider component. Those fixes will be rolled back to Unity 5.1 via patch release later.

I'd wait for this version to be released and test if the problem persist there. I also have several bugs reported that should be fixed on next release.

 

Many thanks for the report!

 

tried on unity version 5.1.2f1 and got the same issue

 

Hi @Edy,

Fantastic plugin! I have a fairly specific question that I hope you can provide insight into, if not a full answer:

I need to know about the heightmap samples of the terrain region under the wheels of my vehicle. From an API perspective it is fairly easy with Terrain.GetHeightSamples(worldposa, world posb, etc). However I need the following information from the wheels:

I can see that the WheelCollider has a bounds property, but I assume it is not right as WheelColliders don't appear to have a width?
Can you provide any insight into properties I could use that might expose the world pose of the wheel and its surrounding region?

 

@strich Physically a WheelCollider is no more than a raycast with origin at the component's transform pointing vertically down. On each physic frame the raycast looks for colliders under the wheel along the suspension distance. If a collider is found then the suspension force is calculated based on the distance to the collider, and the friction force is calculated based on the wheel friction curves.

EVP includes a "tire width" property, but it's used for visual effects only (tire marks, smoke). In VPP the tire width property will also be used for calculating the force feedback. In Unity 3D, different widths can be emulated by tweaking the sideways friction curve. The more width, more sideways grip. But it's up to you to configure the friction curve based on your own custom width property.

As for your problem, it would be rather simple to get those coordinates in the X-Z plane. You can use the WheelHit property for getting the contact properties: point, forwardDir, sidewaysDir. From that, you can get any coordinate around the point of contact. For example:

Code (CSharp):

1. wheel.GetWheelHit(out hit);
2. Vector3 pos = hit.point + hit.forwardDir * wheel.radius + hit.sidewaysDir * width;

Width is your own custom width value. pos would be the coordinate under the front-right corner of the wheel in the XZ plane. This way you could sample as many points as you want by multiplying the forward and sideways components with values from -1 to 1.

Note that this method works only when the wheel is detecting a contact. If you need to get the coordinates even if the wheel is in the air, you could implement a similar method with GetWorldPose:

Code (CSharp):

1. wheel.GetWorldPose(out wheelPos, out wheelRot);
2. Vector3 pos = wheelPos + Vector3.forward * wheelRot * wheel.radius + Vector3.right * wheelRot * width;

In this case pos would also be the front-right corner of the wheel as seen from the top.

 

Thanks @Edy. Using GetWheelHit() appears to work fine. Note that your code for the GetWorldPose() solution does not compile as you cannot multiply a Vector3 with a Quaternion (wheelRot). Did you mean wheelRot.eulerAngles?

 

@strich you can multiply a vector with a quaternion. It's meant for applying the vector the rotation described by the quaternion. I simply missed the order of the operators. This should work:

Code (CSharp):

1. wheel.GetWorldPose(out wheelPos, out wheelRot);
2. Vector3 pos = wheelPos + wheelRot * Vector3.forward * wheel.radius + wheelRot * Vector3.right * width;

 

@Edy....
we are waiting for the 5 FINAL version...
Please hurry up!

By the way... please give us an ETA.
Thanks so much.

 

@Edy is there any magic going on with the wheel collider rotation? wheelCollider.GetWorldPose(pos, rot) seems to work fine only when the wheel has some steering angle applied. If the wheel does not have any steering angle applied then I get coordinates that appear to be rotated 90 deg, as pictured:

 

@mkgm beta 4 will be submitted to the store next week. I'd expect two months for next beta, and a couple of months further for the final version.

@strich If I've understood your logic correctly, then I can't see anything wrong in your picture. If the dots under the wheels are grayed out, as seen in front wheels, then rear wheels are also marking their dots correctly.

 

Question from a prospective customer: does EVP solve the "wheelcollider penetration" problem as described in this post?
http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/818367/how-to-have-a-correct-collision-on-wheel-collider.html

 

@dewing No, as the wheel collider in PhysX is still a single raycast. I have some ideas for solving the problem. However I'm focused on completing the package in terms of settings, features, gameplay, etc. and this issue is not a priority at this time.

 

I know for sure that this is a frequent question, but anyway want to ask a suggestion.
I'm making an arcade physics racing game and expierencing some issues.

1. To make fast paced game I need accelerate to the max speed in short time, so i'm increaseng Max Drive Force and modifing its Curve.
2. To prevent long-duration jumps and achieve "toy"-effect I'm increasing gravity
3. High gravity makes increasing of springs and grip values necessary
4. To make possible vehicle going uphill with high gravity i need to increase Drive Force again

And after tuning all this values I've got playable micro machines style behavior which satisfies me. Only one thing is annoying. If I need to start moving uphill from sloped surface - vehicle stucked until Drive Force will be raised again! But doing this all other behavior will become unsatisfying.

Maybe I'm doing some steps wrong to achieve "correct arcade behavior"? Any suggestions?
Thanks!

 

Still no update or is it in review?
What can we expect in the next update?

I also have a small question:
Which values should I work with to enable long and easy to achieve drifts? Is this even possible with only tweaking parameters?
If not: Where is the best point to start working on the code to achieve such behaviour? I'm thinking about games like Need For Speed where you only have to hit the handbrake shortly and you can drift around corners smooth and easily.

Best regards

 

How do I get the latest version of Vehicle Physics from

http://projects.edy.es/git/edy/vehicle-physics.git

 

I was able to download the latest version of Vehicle Physics from http://projects.edy.es/git/edy/vehicle-physics.git but I had problems setting up my own vehicles for Vehicle Physics. What should I do in 3DS Max to get my own vehicles working with Vehicle Physics. I followed the video tutorial at http://www.edy.es/dev/vehicle-physics/user-guide/ but my own vehicles don't work properly. The front wheels steer on the wrong axis (X-Axis) instead of Y-Axis and the vehicles move left/right sidewise instead of forward/reverse.