Hello, I am developing a cool thing in Maya called RacerGT. I got the idea while using MelBotWars but wanted to be able to drive the 'vehicles' around myself using hotkeys etc...
Basically you model and rig simple vehicles and then get to drive them around on a track while being able to throw jumps and obstacles in there as well. I have a slow machine but am sure that this would work well on something better. The vehicle uses rigid-body's and the hotkeys drive both the X and Y spin-impulse settings for the front and rear wheels.
The only problem I am having so far, is that all the controls flip to the opposite direction once the car turns around the 180
I've actually done something VERY similar... except I have an acutual UI that I use as a "remote controll" for the cars, linked to a buttonManip that pops them open wheen needed.
However, (and I havn't spent TOO much time on it), I wasn ever able to get the wheels to accurately turn direction and deliver the proper rotations. Meaning, I'm using an acutual cylindrical tire shape. I can spin it along an axis to make the vehicle move forward nooo problem.... and if the vehicle bounces into another direction, it can go that way just fine... but I've never been able to actually TURN the wheels as if one was turning a steering wheel, and make sure the spin impulse was reoriented as well. The spin impulse stays locked to the initial orientation of the wheel, while the wheel itself can turn about "under" it. Almost as if the spin impules is on a parent transform that never changes orientation, and the wheel is a separate transform spinning below it. As long as the child spins on a single axis, all is well, but if it pivots to change direction, then you get off axis rotation and everything blows up.
If I were using speheres instead of cylinders, this would be a moot point, but I like the idea of using real "wheels". Are you using spehers or cylinders? I've played with melbotwars which gave me the idea as well. If you have a good method for turning "cylindrical" wheels, and want to pass that on, I can work on the whole flipping issue.
Have either of you figured out a solution to the spin impulse axis problem, I'm working on a similar rig, I have full suspension with front wheel turning control on the RBody rig, but am also having problems driving the simulation beyond 180deg. RRRrrrrrrrrrrr!
