Vehicles: WheeledVehicle: introducing, "The uniFrame"!
03/19/2008 (4:37 pm) by Rex
This is the uniFrame, multi-purpose vehicle chassis system I have been developing for a while now. After having worked the DTS/DSQ character/playerAvatar pipeline to a fine hone with BrokeAssGames this past year; work began around this time last year on a side project, away from RUIN Online, involving multiple vehicleTypes. Vehicle physics and their corresponding animations were a bit of a mystery to me, until I got involved with the side project the BAG coding Department was working on, as a character animator and rigger. Things got more involved at the close of that phase, and I was asked to improve upon the vehicles intended for the codeBase.
The frame and suspension system pictured here is based upon the US mil vehicle M998+, commonly referred to as a 'HMMWV" or 'humvee', manufactured by AM General Independent suspension for each tire, along with all wheel drive for each wheel bearing, made this vehicle attractive to model and setup for Torque. There are at least 15 variants on the basic frame of this vehicle.
Along with the hub node for the tire mounting, the uniFrame system utilizes a few nodes in a chain to give the associated components life of their own, simulating the working suspension the vehicle. Parenting the hub node, is a tire node that represents the root of each independent system. Branching off from this root node, are three more nodes for the associated vertices of the A-frame arms,spring/piston combo, and tie-rod geometry. All of these work in conjunction to produce both the spring sequence and the steering sequence motions.
In this image, you get a closer look at the alignment system I employed to get my multiple components in sync while animated and scripted. Pictured are several differing colors of widgets I created and located at very specific locations with the geometry of the vehicle's wheel, or well; where the tire object will mount when called by the generic vehicle script. The red horizontal bar widget represents the hub node's location within the vehicle's rig and extending out past where the wheel would be. The white horizontal widget is actually part of the tire DTS file. By exporting and mounting the wheels via script, this will tell me if they are at the same plane/height/position. The small multi colored cube primitives are incremental measurements, in real world measurements applied to the geometry. Oh, btw, that steering wheel in the background; it works as well, with the steering sequence, along with the wheel components. That was fun to throw in as well....
The last little bit of 'zazz' for this bloq, is a close up from the wheels center area back into the suspension of the driver's side front tire. In the background is barely visible the last bit of detail I put to the uniframe before production of the side project got fast and furious. It's a V-8 engine model I threw together in about 15 minutes to get my interiors detailed to some kind of scale. I rigged it up and animated it to cycle thru it's 8 pistons continuously. There are 8 keyframes, one for each piston in an up while each other is in the down position. I know it's not a real engine's firing order...but hey, looked pretty dang-dawg cool when I scripted it to be running while I tooled around as KORK in the SDK...lol.
Well, here it is, my recent workings with the Vehicle class, specifically the WheeledVehicle, anyone need a used car, I know where to get a big shiny one?! ...till next big adventure in 3D game modeling. Drive Safely. Enjoy.
As a side note: CombatStarterKit is where the majority of this vehicle work went. I was asked to document the process I used to get the HGT vehicle to where it stands today and that work is included with the update to the Starter Kit. I'm usually sitting in the DreamGames, BFT, IRC chat room so any questions from license holders can be answered there. I don't mind at all; it was a great round of discovery and development and was a bunch of fun working with Dave, Ash, Kittle, James and the gang there...and a big, Thanks[& bow], to Fafhrd: the artist/coder who allowed me the privilege of working with the HGT geometry and getting it's many different parts working together, doin' some cool stuf...
About the author
I have been interested in computer gaming since 1980 when; on a crappy 5.25 floppy bootable machine[have no idea who manufactured it...], I constructed my first program, ever. It was a simple, trajectory-based, mortar-firing simulation. LOL. It actually printed out the trajectory with Xs, lol....things have come a long way since then. Advance 20+ years later where I am a professional stagehand & member of [url=http://www.iatse-intl.org/index_flash.html]I.A.T.S.E.[/url], who has lots of free time to burn on figuring out these UIs and their functions....:) Most days finds me researching and building & animating meshes. My painting skills are sadly lacking...but I have begun to educate myself on scripting with TGE to get my shapes working inside the engine. I really appreciate this engine, and I am now a license holder of the SDK...even though my skills squander the fee without my understanding any C++, but with a bit of study and experimenting, I can certainly script and with VSExpress 2005 I could compile my own engine... In 2003, I involved myself with a UT MOD: Badlands,[url]http://www.planetunreal.com/unrealbadlands/[/url], a Western Themed mod for the Unreal Engine. I contributed 1st Person shapes and animation, some static shapes, and did all the voice files needed to finish off the Total Conversion of the engine. We finished the project with as much functionality as we intended to include and it was fairly well received as a MOD; I am unsure of our to date DL totals, but I know they were in excess of 10,000. Upon conclusion of that Project, plans were laid to continue the Western theme with UT 2k3, but the TGE was looked at instead, as it fit our production needs; namely it had a relative inexpense price and excellent framework in place. Plans towards [b][i]yet another[/i][/b] UT mod were quickly redirected towards utilizing Torque to produce a downloadable & enjoyable game. Work continues to date on this persistent world Western Theme Project and help is needed in the scripting and compiling fields. Any interested parties should contact me at my public email address above. Recently, in early 2007; a headHunter began lurking about on my chat client[MSNmessenger] and I was lured into Team Action once again. After numerous chats and actual eye2eye meeting, short 144 mile trip, I committed to a year of work on BrokeAssGames.com RUIN Online. After meeting Ari & Jondo, it did not take me long to agree to help out... Concentrating on rigging and character developement, I have been working hard ever since getting the proposed pipeline as feature compatable as possible. I also have learned a few new programs along the way, and even got as far as getting some content formatted for POSER5. That was indeed some curve to master...the deformation and rigging schema are totally unlike any for game centric content building, it is not true vertex weighting as [i]we[/i] all know it. Parametric mumboJumbo it is...and I OWNZ it! Work will continue on the RUIN project well into 2008.... [b]ReferenceLibrary:(some of my more interesting/helpful media...)[/b] [b]The Game Programers Guide to Torque[/b] by Edward F. Maurina III [b]3D-ALL IN ONE[/b] by Kenneth C. Finney [b]Advanced 3D -ALL IN ONE[/b] by Kenneth C. Finney [b]Modeling a Character in 3DS Max[/b] by Paul Steed [b]Vol.3 Anime&Game Characters[/b] by Tadashi Ozawa [b]Vol.4 Anime&Game Characters[/b] by Tadashi Ozawa [b]How To Draw MANGA Occult & Horror[/b] by Hikaru Hayashi [b]Weapons[/b] by Edwin Tunis [b]Castle[/b] by David Macaulay [b]Modern Electronics[/b] by David Bruce [b]The Lore of Sport-Fishing[/b] by Tre Tryckare, E. Cagner [b]The Model Makers Handbook[/b] by Albert Jackson & David Day [b]The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly[/b] directed by Sergio Leone[this is probably my all-time favorite movie, the score: phenemonal] [b]For a Few Dollars More...[/b] directed by Sergio Leone [b]Speed Racer Collectors Editions vols. I, III, IV[/b] ...as you can see; my interests and professional skills vary greatly! view profile »
The idea behind the 'uniFrame' is to have a working undercarriage of a vehicle that can have multiple geometry mounted to it, or built around the frame; just like a real vehicle. They use a few frames, and reposition the components. Built to Mfg posted public specifications[AM Generals']; I have the frame to where it will fit nicely under just about any type of 'body'...
The really cool part was the engine running while driving...lol. That was the part I really enjoyed; making all the details come 'alive'...
Torque Owner Ed Johnson