What it is , is a way to key frame animate the position of the vehicle and it will steer the body and wheels in the correct direction.
This is not a vehicle simulation tool . It doesn't simulate a vehicle driving based on a vector that you provide for it.

What it does do , is calculate where the ground surface is based on the direction that the main control points. This means that the wheels will stay in contact with the surface of the ground or any objects that are listed in the ground list. The body of the vehicle then reacts to the position of the wheels dynamically and in real time so that body roll, pitch and over all bounce are handled for you.
It does not work on real world physics , this means that it is not affected by gravity and it is not simulating collision detection in the way that reactor or other simulation tools do.

What it does is react to key frame or path animation input allowing animators to quickly setup direction and the vehicle will handle the rest. The vehicle will always stay on course that the animator provides and it is up to the animator to make sure that the car looks like it is driving in a believable manner.
It is not for doing accurate real world simulations , as it doesn't calculate gravity, drag, acceleration, breaking or other forces.

This is a tool for animators for things like car commercials, films or game trailers where cars need to behave in a very specific way but feel as though they are being driven. Animators want to have control over what is going on and not have to keep running sims until it gets close enough. The rig has been used also for arch vis and pre vis as it provides a simple and fast solution to setting up and animating a vehicle. The rig could be used for accident reconstruction how ever it would be up to the animator to make sure that the final solution was accurate.

All automation can be over ridden . Because this is a tool for animators all the automated features can be turned off or animated on top of. This allows for complete control over the rig to get the tough shot to work.

The problem that I see with vehicle simulations is that much of the time you don't want a random solution. Often you want it to look and feel real but start and end exactly where you want as well as follow a very specific path.

Note: Because of the authorization systems in place licenses are not transferable. Please be sure to authorize them on the machine that you will be using the product on.

Cost: The car and trailer rig come as a package and can be purchased for $400 Canadian dollars for one license or $600 Canadian dollars for a three license bundle via Pay Pal. Once the amount is confirmed the product will be emailed to you. Once installed you will need to email back the Hardware Lock ID of the machine that it will be installed on and a counter code will be issued.

	MX Driver, Single License	Total: $400.00 CAD
	MX Driver , Three License Bundle	Total: $600.00 CAD

About Rollout:

The about box has information about version, links to PEN Productions site as well as this page for quick reference when working with the rig.

Licensing is also in the about rollout. The Hardware Lock ID needs to be emailed to info@paulneale.com with a request for a counter code. Please include in the title of the email, "Request for Car Rig license"

Animation Rollout:

Float Tools: Will float the UI so that other objects can be worked on at the same time. Only one vehicles UI can be visible at any one time.

Reverse: Reverses the steering and orientation action of the car so that it will work in reverse. This is an animatable property.

Wheel Spin: Multiply the rotation of the wheels. This can be used for skidding the car or making it appear as the car is spinning the wheels and loosing traction. Each wheel can be controlled separately.

Auto Steer Multiplier: These two values can be animated to ramp on and off the auto steering of the vehicle.

Body Offset and Steer Offset: These values off set the steering of the body and front wheels to simulate skidding of the wheels into a corner. If the front wheels are set ahead a number of frames and the body behind it will appear as though the vehicle is loosing traction in the front end.

Dynamics Rollout:

This is just for the body of the car and will not affect how the wheels contact the ground

Dynamics On: Turns the dynamics on and off. This is an animatable property.

Dynamics:
Mass: The over all weight of the body. This is in Max units and not real world values.
Strength: The amount the body will try to snap back to its starting position.
Sway: Controls the dampening on the body.

Dynamics Multiplier:
Roll: Set the amount of roll side to side the body is affected by the Mass.
Pitch: Set the amount of front to back roll the body is affected by the Mass.
Bounce: Set the amount the up and down motion is affected by the Mass.

Note: The dynamics is a real time calculation. It should be left off when animating if possible as it will affect the interactive speed of the view ports. Scrubbing the animation backwards can be very slow as it is always has to calculate from the reference frame. Scrubbing forwards will not be affected but can still be slow depending on the scene. It is best to turn it on once the position of the car is animated to check to see how it is working.

Car Setup Rollout:

Setup:
Ref Frame: Sets the starting frame that the vehicle will use to calculate from. This is used for the all the real time values.

Set Starting Direction: Sets the orientation of the vehicle body and front wheels to point the the starting direction of the control object.

Wheels:
Front Radius:Controls the radius of the front two wheels.
Rear Radius: Controls the radius of the back two wheels.
Wheel Length: Distance the wheels are apart front to back.
Wheel Width: Sets the distance the wheels are apart side to side.
Ground Offset: This is used when a ground object is present. It sets the contact point + or - to the point of contact.

Body:
Body Style: Choose the style of the proxy mesh. Four predefined solution come with the rig. Car, Pickup, Big Rig and a simple Box. Custom shapes can be added very easily.
Style Height: Sets the height of the body style.
Back Height: Sets the body mass at the rear axle higher or lower.
Front Height: Sets the body mass at the front axle higher or lower.

Direction / Steering :
Sensitivity: Controls the distance the vehicle needs to travel before the orientation will start to be calculated. This helps with small movements that cause the front wheels and body snapping to a new direction with slight movements in the position of the vehicle.
Frame Samples: This sets the amount of frames forward and back that the steering will sample to calculate the direction of the wheels. The higher the value the smoother the front wheels will steer but the slower the calculations will become. It is best to insure that the bezier curves or path that the car is following is as smooth as possible. Just using smooth tangents will not always work as they are not always as smooth as you would expect. Values of 2 to 6 are usually enough to smooth any pops in the steering.
Dampening:
Uses a value from 0 to 1. 0 will allow the steering to be fully acitve. A value of 1 will completely stop the wheels from streering. Small values like 0.2 work well for smoothing out the streering if the trajectory of the car isn't smooth.

Hit Sampling:
Num Hit Tests: Has been removed for the latest version as the hit detection system is all new.
Random Range: Has been removed for the latest version as the hit detection system is all new.
Frame Samples:
Samples forward and back the amount of frames requested. This will help in some cases with blending sudden changes in ground level. Note that speed will be greatly reduced when this value is turned up.
Sample Step:
With a sample step of 1 each frame forward and back that Frame Samples uses will be calculated. If the Sample Step is set to 2 every other frame will be sampled. it is best to Keep the sample steps at a value that can be divided into the Frame Samples evenly.

Shock Travel: This controls the amount of movement from wheels can take from the car body.

Manage Car:
Car Prefix: The prefix that will be used for the car rig. This allows users to change the name of all the objects in the car rig to a unique name when multiple cars will be used in a scene.
Add Prefix: Adds the prefix in the Car Prefix text box.
Delete Car From Scene: Will delete the car and all its parts except for any meshes that have been liked to it.

Ground Objects Rollout:

Enable Ground Objects: Turn on and off the affect of the ground objects.

Ground:
Pick Ground: Allows the animator to selection an object for the car to stick to. More then one object can be added. Once the object is added the vehicle will automatically snap to the ground plane and the orientation of the body and wheels will be set accordingly.
Ground Objects: A list of all the ground objects that have been added and will be calculated. Note that the more objects that are added the slower the calculations can become.
Use Animated Objects:
Forces the calculation of the ground surface to be refreshed each frame. This will cause major slow downs in the gorund detection.
Update:
Updates the ground detection grid for fast intersection tests. This is not needed if Use Animated Objects is on. If changes are made to the topology of the ground objects, pressing update will force a rebuild of the voxel grid.
Remove: Will remove all objects from the list.

Bake Animation Rollout:

Since the vehicle is using time and distance traveled to determine the orientation of the body and front wheels as well as the rotation on the wheels the animation needs to be baked if net work rendering is to be used. Also once the animation is complete on the vehicle baking will speed up view port scrubbing as nothing has to be calculated.

Use Bake Settings: If on when baking it will force the Bake Settings to over ride settings in the view port.

Bake Settings:
Use Ground Objects: If Use Bake Settings is turned on this will over ride the setting in the Ground rollout.
Bake Car: If on allows the automation of the car to be baked.
Use Dynamics: If Use Bake Settings is turned on this will over ride the setting in the Dynamics rollout.

Time Range:
Start / End: Set the start and end range for the animation to be baked.
Set to Animation Range: Sets the start and end time to the current animation range.
Sample Step: When animation is baked it will recieve keys at this interval. A Sample Step of 2 will set keys ever other frame. This will also increase the speed of processing the baking by 200%.

Bake:
Bake: Will bake the animation to key frames and turn off the real time properties.

Bake States:
Car: Turned on when the animation is baked. This can be turned off and the real time properties will be turned on again. This allows the animator to make changes after baking . If changes are made the bake button needs to be pressed again.
Dynamics: Once dyanmics are baked this button will be on. Turning it off will allow dynamics to be recalculated in the viewport again. Note, baking dynamics is very fast but showing them in the viewport is slow. It is best to bake the cars animation and then adjust and bake the dynamics as needed.

Delete Keys:
Car: Deletes all the baked animation from the car.
Dynamics: Deletes all the baked animation from the dynamics of the car.

Bake To Helpers:
Helper Size: Size of the helpers in world scale.
Link Model to Helpers: Any objects that have been linked to the wheels or body object of the car will be linked to the helpers that are created.
Bake To Helpers: Creates a set of five helpers and bakes the animation of the cars body and wheels to them. This can be used for exporting to game or other real time engines.
Delete Helpers: Deletes the helper objects that have been created.

Body Styles: Four default body styles come with the rig. Custom ones can be added easily.

Car:	Pickup:
Big Rig:	Box:

Animation Rollout:

Cache:
Create Cache: Creates an internal cache of the position of the trailer. This is needed to ensure that the trailer is following correctly. Several functions call this automaticaly but there are times when animation has been changed that you need to manualy update it. The cache is also created as the animation time line is scrubed. If frames are skipped the animation will not be correct. Pressing Create Cache will update the cache and the animation will play correctly.
Clear Cache: Deletes the cache data.

Dynamics Rollout:

Dynamics On: Turns on the dyanamics for the trailer. Note, dynamics slow the real time play back of the trailer and should be left off.
Edit: Opens a dialog for editing the setting of the dynamics.

Dynamics Multiplier:
Roll: Multiplies the amount of roll in the trailer body.
Bounce: Multiplies the amount of bounce in the trailer body.

Setup Rollout:

Target Object:
Pick Target: Allows for a hitch to be selected. The trailer will align it self to the target object that is selected and link to it.
Remove Target: Removes the target objects from the system and unlinks the trailer.

Setup:
Ref Frame: The reference frame where the trailer will reset all its values. The trailer is time dependent and needs a frame that will reset the automation. This ensures that the animation is the same each time.

Sampling:
Num Hit Tests: When animated ground objects are used, Num Hit Tests will test the ground detection the set number of times. This is needed to ensure a correct hit in some cases.
Random Range: In some cases with animated ground objects hit tests will return false if the test is performed in the same location each time. Random Range changes where the hit test will be performed by a random amount in all axes.

Dimensions:
Trailer Length: The length of the trailer from the hitch to the axel.
Wheel Rad: Radius of the wheels.
Wheel Width: Width between wheels.
Trailer Height: Height of the box of the trailer.
Angle Ratio: The angle side to side of the trailer is controller in three ways. First is the angle of the ground plane that the trailer is driving over, the second and third way are manual controls using either the control object at the hitch or one of the two controls at the rear of the trailer. The Angle Ratio spinner controllers the amount that either the rear or hitch controls the angle of the trailer. With a value of 0.0 the control at the rear has 100% control over the angle of the trailer and with a value of 1.0 the hitch control has 100% control.

Manager Trailer:
Trailer Prefix: The trailer like the car can be be renamed with a prefix to make it eaiser when dealing with multiple trailers in a scene.
Add Prefix: Adds the prefix in the Trailer Prefix field to all the objects in the trailer.
Delete Trailer From Scene: Deletes the current trailer and all its objects from the scene.

Ground Objects Rollout:

Enable Ground Objects: Turn on and off the affect of the ground objects.

Ground:
Pick Ground: Allows the animator to selection an object for the car to stick to. More then one object can be added. Once the object is added the vehicle will automatically snap to the ground plane and the orientation of the body and wheels will be set accordingly.
Ground Objects: A list of all the ground objects that have been added and will be calculated. Note that the more objects that are added the slower the calculations can become.
Use Animated Objects:
Forces the calculation of the ground surface to be refreshed each frame. This will cause major slow downs in the gorund detection.
Update:
Updates the ground detection grid for fast intersection tests. This is not needed if Use Animated Objects is on. If changes are made to the topology of the ground objects, pressing update will force a rebuild of the voxel grid.
Remove: Will remove all objects from the list.

Bake Animation Rollout:

Since the trailer is using time and distance traveled to determine the orientation of the body as well as the rotation on the wheels, the animation needs to be baked if net work rendering is to be used. Also once the animation is complete on the trailer baking will speed up view port scrubbing since the calculations are no longer being done.

Bake Options:
Use Ground Objects: If Use Bake Settings is turned on this will over ride the setting in the Ground rollout.
Bake Trailer: If on allows the automation of the trailer to be baked.
Bake Dynamics: If Use Bake Settings is turned on this will over ride the setting in the Dynamics rollout.

Bake Scene:
All Trailers: Will force all trailers animation to be baked.

Time Range:
Start / End: Set the start and end range for the animation to be baked.
Set to Animation Range: Sets the start and end time to the current animation range.
Sample Step: When animation is baked it will recieve keys at this interval. A Sample Step of 2 will set keys ever other frame. This will also increase the speed of processing the baking by 200%.

Bake:
Bake: Will bake the animation to key frames and turn off the real time properties.

Bake States:
Trailer: Turned on when the animation is baked. This can be turned off and the real time properties will be turned on again. This allows the animator to make changes after baking . If changes are made the bake button needs to be pressed again.
Dynamics: Once dyanmics are baked this button will be on. Turning it off will allow dynamics to be recalculated in the viewport again. Note, baking dynamics is very fast but showing them in the viewport is slow. It is best to bake the trailers animation and then adjust and bake the dynamics as needed.

Delete Keys:
Car: Deletes all the baked animation from the car.
Dynamics: Deletes all the baked animation from the dynamics of the car.

Bake To Helpers:
Helper Size: Size of the helpers in world scale.
Link Model to Helpers: Any objects that have been linked to the wheels or body object of the trailer will be linked to the helpers that are created.
Bake To Helpers: Creates a set of three helpers and bakes the animation of the trailers body and wheels to them. This can be used for exporting to game or other real time engines.
Delete Helpers: Deletes the helper objects that have been created.