CINEMA 4D

DYNAMIC

CAR

RIG

Cinema 4D -  Dynamic Car Rig (DCR)
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With the Cinema 4D Dynamic Car Rig (DCR) you can quickly animate cars and other vehicles. As the car drives autonomously along a spline, it does not need any keyframes to animate. It recognizes curves and even other cars in order to adjust speed and steering behavior.

The tool consists of three parts:
● DCR-Car
● DCR-Track & Commandos
● DCR-Cam

Available on gumroad.com/florenoir

Software
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works with Cinema 4D Version
2024, 2023, R26, R25
Not tested with R24 or older.

No Plugins needed

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How to Install DCR and first steps:

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DCR – Car Settings

In Layout Mode you can adjust the dimensions of the car, tire size,suspension travel,wheel suspension and the rough collision shape of the car.

(autobody not included)

General Settings

GUI + Collusion GUI
These two settings provide a view of the backend and make settings such as distance detection, speed, lane change position and much more visible.
 
Layout Mode
In Layout Mode you can adjust the dimensions of the car, tire size, suspension travel, wheel suspension and the rough collision shape of the car. Activate and deactivate "Reset" to reset the shape and dimensions to the original positions. Please note that you can only customize the layout in the timeline frame #0
 
Automatic Drive
This button must be activated so that the car drives independently along the linked spline "Track Spline". The behavior of the car, for example when it brakes in the curves and how fast it drives, are determined further down in the settings.

Track Commando + Track Spline
So that the car knows where it should drive, it needs a spline object on which the car can move independently. This spline is either included in the Track & Commando link or if you do not need commandos and interaction with other cars and it has to be quick, you can insert a link to a spline in Track Spline. If you insert a Track & Commando later, this will be replaced.
 
Presets
Here you can retrieve various presets that apply to most of the values. For example, the default setting 'Safety Car' adjusts the values for most cars and normal driving.

Acceleration + Torque + Steering
The values determine the maximum acceleration and the force "Torque" that is applied. Note that with larger tires and greater force, the car is quickly thrown off course. Steering is performed automatically (as long as Automatic Drive is activated). How quickly the angle of the steering wheel changes depends on the "Soften Steering" value. At high speed and a high "Soften Steering" value, the car quickly starts to roll.

Lane Change
With Line Change, the car follows the track spline with a corresponding distance either to the left or right side of the lane. If you have several cars, this prevents all of them from trying to drive in the middle of the track. The button "Set Manual Position" sets the current position of the car (only in frame#0) and the car tries to stay in this lane.
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Brake Behavior + Curve Detection 
With Brake Behavior, you specify how hard the car brakes or reduces speed before a curve. When the car recognizes the bend in the road depends on the distance from the value of "Distance Detection" ●
The car can countersteer on small bends and cut tight corners. This behavior is controlled with "Cutting Curves" ●
 
The left road in the animation, the "Brake Behavior" value is low and "Cutting Curves" and "Distance Detection" are set to maximum. The road on right-hand side, "Brake Behavior" is high and "Cutting Curves" and "Distance Detection" are at minimum.
 
This allows you to choose between aggressive or defensive
driving behavior.
 
ROTATE DISTANCE DETECTION
This value determines how far the measuring points for distance detection turn with the car. At a low value, these remain fixed and can cause the car to simply turn around and drive in the opposite direction in very tight bends or slides.
At the highest value, the measuring points always follow the track in the specified direction.

Front + Rear Engine, Brake
Here you can specify whether the car should have front-wheel, rear-wheel or all-wheel drive.The brakes can also be activated here. These are normally activated via Track & Commando.

Dynamics & Mass Settings

Spring Stiffness and damping
The spring stiffness and spring damping are set here. A low spring damping value causes the car to bounce more often.

Mass
The weight of the car of the wheels and the mass position can be determined here. If the car often falls out of the curve, it is advisable to position the center of gravity manually. In this case, it should be as close to the ground (Y-70% ≈ 100%) as possible. Otherwise, the shape of the collision shape determines the center of mass.

Grip Front- rear Wheels
The friction of the tires can be influenced here. These can also be influenced with Track & Commando to trigger different driving situations.

Body Rotation Dumping
If this value is increased, the car is forced to tilt less. Although this is not physically correct, it can help to keep the car on track in some cases.
Benutzerfeld_DynamicMass

Instances & Commandos

Collusion Box Size
The spring stiffness and spring damping are set here. A low spring damping value causes the car to bounce more often.
Commandos Distance Detection
This value determines the radius of the command detection area of the car.The larger the radius, the earlier the settings are adopted by the commands. This is visible when you switch on the GUI interface.
 
Chassis Pole Size
Determines the diameter of the chassis thickness and wheel suspension

Front- and Rear Wheel Instance
Here you can insert the link to the 3D model of the tires which are automatically placed in the correct position.
InstancesCommandosl3
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DCR – Track & Commando

With Track & Commandos you can give commands to the car along the track spline as soon as it enters its command area. You can also add cars (object list) to let them interact with each other.

Activate Track & Commando
Activates the race track, the command script or just hides it.
 
Track Spline + railing and Track Width
This is where you insert the spline object that is to represent the road or race track. Here you can also define the width of the track. Other C4D collision objects can also be used, but in this case it would be good to use the settings from the "Dynamics Body Tags".
 
Track Displacement + Friction
The surface displacement of the ground can be edited here, from small irregularities to wide dunes.

You can also manually edit the surface friction here, but 100% is great for the vehicle presets.
 
Add Other Cars
To enable other vehicles to interact with each other, you must drag and drop them into the object list.

COMMANDOS #1 - #10
Activate and position the Commandos along the track.Speed,"Lane Position" and tire friction can be changed here while driving.
The range of control can also be changed with "Commando Size".
TrackCommando

You can simply copy paste* up to 10 cars onto your race track. With the help of bounding boxes, the cars try to overtake each other and prevent a collision. 

*(It is important to link all your cars to the object list in Track & Commando)

 

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DCR – Cam

The DCR-Cam follows the car without adopting its angle and tilt. This means that the camera does not take on the vibrations and turns of the moving car, making it an ideal tool for the quick animation of exciting racing shots.

DCR BODY Link
Simply drag the DCR-Body into the DCR-Cam link field and add your cameras into the DCR-Cam folder.
 
DCR_Cam2

COPYRIGHT

All artwork on this site are Copyright © 2017 Florian Renner, or their respective copyright holders.  Do not use without permission.

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CONTACT

Florian Renner, Munich, Germany
mobile: +49 (0)157.74 74 74 89
mail: hello (at) rennerflorian.de