Custom Car Controller

While I was studying the elastic behavior applied in various contexts to improve the game feel, I came across a video that explained the making of a custom raycast-based car physics controller used in a party game named Very Very Valet. Understanding the basics of how such a system works has led me to create two types of car controller cause I wanted to explore the main differences between simulation and arcade driving controls: “A simulation is a game with physics that only focuses on, and lets me do things, I could do in reality (within the margin of possibility). An arcade racer is the opposite. It focuses and lets me do things I could never do in the real world.”

Arcade

For the arcade feeling I implemented a Custom Physics Controller that simulate a car using a single rigidbody and a raycast-based approach. We apply a force to the position of each tire, the vector representing this force has three components (one for each axis): suspension, accelleration and steering.

Simulation

Unity has a Wheel Collider that is a collider for grounded vehicles. It has buit-in collision detection, wheel physics, and a slip-based tire friction model. It can be used for objects other than wheels, but it is specifically designed for vehicles with wheels. The steps to make a simulator as close as possible to reality are endless, I just implemented some modular component such as: tyres, engine, brakes, transmission, suspension, steering and basic aero dynamics.

Other stuff that I learned

• AI Steering Behaviour
• Checkpoint System