fixed axis possible in 4-wheeler?

[mowax]

hi there!
i've modeled an willys jeep in maya. now, the animation with craft 4-wheeler works fine on it, but there is an issue: if i look from the front on it, the wheels are always parallel to each other and 90° to the ground, but shifted in height. like it is normal when every wheel has it's own suspension. but the willys jeep has a fixed axis. the 2 wheels should point to each other. is this possible to do, and if yes how??

thanks in advance.

[Carl Buhre]

hi there!
i've modeled an willys jeep in maya. now, the animation with craft 4-wheeler works fine on it, but there is an issue: if i look from the front on it, the wheels are always parallel to each other and 90° to the ground, but shifted in height. like it is normal when every wheel has it's own suspension. but the willys jeep has a fixed axis. the 2 wheels should point to each other. is this possible to do, and if yes how??

thanks in advance.

As of today, that can't be done. But we have an upcoming product that will feature a full-physics solution that will be able to do fixed axises. You can view an example of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8tLGgx-kJo

[mowax]

wow, looks very interesting.

now, for the willys-jeep, i deleted the rotate z keyframes and put an aim constraint between the left and right wheels, pointing to each other. that works fine for me right now.

[Carl Buhre]

wow, looks very interesting.

now, for the willys-jeep, i deleted the rotate z keyframes and put an aim constraint between the left and right wheels, pointing to each other. that works fine for me right now.

Great! Just keep in mind that if you re-simulate the animation or re-record (or add any) animation you will probably have to redo that part. At least deleting the rotate z keyframes.

[mowax]

yeah, but that'S no problem. i can do that at the end, now that i know that it works that way.

but another question: i wanna move the steering-rotation axis of the front wheels a little bit inward, because the pivot for that is not exactly at the center of the tire. now i moved the maya pivot point from the wheel-mesh-craft-dummy inwards. it seems to work, but under steering, the tire slides a little bit over the ground. the forward-rotation speed is not correct then. is this the way i have to do that or is there another, better way?
hope you can follow my point

[Luigi Tramontana]

Hi mowax.

A quick fix for your wish is to use an ExtraWheel and attach it to the WheelCenterMesh, and then use the extrawheel instead of the 4wext wheel as your dummy.
Also check out the "BETA versions" sections in this forum to give the axis' more flexibility.

// Luigi TA

[YMangolds]

Another option for the axle is to use a cdt suspension thingy linked to the wheel center meshes and have the axle parented to the middle of the suspension. If the extra wheels don't tilt properly by linking them to the wheel center meshes you could link them to the ends of the suspension

[gside]

Hello,
i dont want start new thread, so i ask here. Hows it lookink with solid axle feature? Can we expect it soon?