Vehicle Implementation, how does Godot fare?

SuryaSel

Hey all,  I was wondering how easy it is to implement an arcade car in Godot. I'd like to make cars that can drift and react mildly to road undulations, doesn't have to be super-realistic and all (think PS2-Era NFS Drift Modes). At the moment, all I have as 'progress' is a crude prototype made in Unreal 4 where a car can drift and drift score is calculated using the angle, speed, and combo. Also thrown in is a sway-action cam that exaggerates the drifting effect to the player. Considering I won't mind investing some time learning how the engine works, can anyone tell me how easily can I achieve the above in Godot? (Either from provided modules or scratch) For a little context, I'm an ABSOLUTE beginner in gamedev and am still testing the waters in various engines before I take the plunge. I'd like to start out by making an arcade drifting game with focus on racking up high scores by pulling off sick drifts, and hence the above question. At the moment I've eliminated everything except Unreal 4, Godot and Xenko (I know, don't call me out for Unity, I didn't really like it very much). And yeah, I've been waiting for Source 2 as well. Cheers, SuryaSel.

FlavoredCactus

https://github.com/godotengine/godot-demo-projects/tree/master/3d/truck_town this is probably the demo you wanna check out.

SuryaSel

FlavoredCactus said:

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Thanks Cactus, that demo was helpful and gave me some idea of it works but I'm not fully clear on this yet. I did meddle a little bit with the car's script and variables from whatever limited understanding I had from a glance (haven't quite started learning Godot yet). While other required tweaks were easy (like engine, suspension, etc.), I'm still unable to get the car to drift. Just when I thought I had it right, the car just rolled over on turning. Can anyone advice me on how to get an arcade drift car?

SuryaSel

BUMP! Anyone? I like to the prospect of jumping ship from UE4 to Godot and an answer could really help :)

NeoD

I tried to make the vehicle drifting. It happens only when the throttle is released ( engine force is probably set to 0 at that time ). When an engine force is applied the wheels doesn't slide for some reason. Also, I think engine force does not make the wheels spins. It only push the vehicle. It's just an assumption.

SuryaSel

Thanks for the reply NeoD. Despite that issue, may I know what you did to get it drift even without throttle in the first place? Man I wish there was some sorta rudimentary documentation on vehicle behaviour. <blockquote class="Quote">

Also, I think engine force does not make the wheels spins. It only push the vehicle. It's just an assumption.

</blockquote> I'm not too sure of that. Could someone please clarify on this?

NeoD

When my car reachs some speed I turn the wheels without apply engine force ( throttle released) so my car slides nicely. You may set the wheels friction lower to achieve this. But whatever the friction was set the engine force can't make the powered wheels to "drift". For your second question I just noticed that when the car jumps on a ramp, or falls. The powered wheels doesn't reacts to throttle when they aren't on the ground. Maybe this unrealistic behaviour is related to the previous problem.

Ross

Maybe this will help? Very arcade-y. I don't know anything about Godot's 3D stuff, but I assume it has all the basic stuff he uses here.

sionco

Great find! Will love to experiment with this!

SuryaSel

@Ross Thanks a lot for the link man. While it doesn't quite answer my question on Godot's Vehicles, I was looking for a video like this for quite a while. It was a great hidden gem that never turned in my searches too, and am definitely gonna fiddle around with this approach in both GD and UE4. It may not replace my primary Arcade-Drift project in UE, but I'm already having some ideas around this approach as well. Really, can't thank you (and the video author) enough...wish I could upvote it while still not marking it as an answer :neutral:

But my question still holds - How exactly does Godot work its vehicles? (Talkin' about those vehicle related classes/nodes such as Vehicle, Wheel, etc.)