Tiny Car Controller - official thread

Asset Store link

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/physics/tiny-car-controller-151827

Description

This controller allows you to create and control a basic vehicle with fully configurable, arcade-like physics.

Instead of having a body with four separate wheels, which is often needlessly complicated and prone to glitches, this controller is composed of a single rigidbody and sphere collider, similar to a character controller.

Features
- Easy one step setup
- Control acceleration, speed, drifting, slope limit, collisions, and more
- Change surfaces parameters to create for instance ice, mud, etc.
- Lightweight, perfect for mobile games
- Includes scripts to take care of input, visuals, and camera
- No risk of flipping over
- Can be used for any type of vehicle

Have suggestions or concerns? Feel free to let me know in the comments!

Screenshots

 

A mac versione demo?

 

How the car collides with obstacles and environment? Sphere collider or own Box(Mesh) collider?

 

@MnzSoftware : I can try but I have no way to test it since I don't own a mac.

@IgorNovik : The controller itself is a sphere but you can add colliders on the sides if you'd like the car to collide realistically with walls and such.

 

The better option may be WebGL, that's the direction most seam to be going with demos these days and it should work on all major platforms.

 

Hi, Do you have any plans to add the AI into the controller so that cars can search and smash?

 

@dev_2051 I could potentially make a "pro" version with AI and racing mechanics. I've been thinking about it, but I can't yet say if or when it's going to happen.

 

Until that happens I'd suggest taking a look at the AI car from Unity Standard Assets. It comes with a very simple to use pathfinding system, and the scripts are easy to adapt to this controller. Right now it is what I'm using. This video gives a pretty decent overview:

 

umm no documentation is included, like none at all ?

 

A few questions:

1. How can I manipulate the speed of the car (aka apply speed boost) ?
2. Does this asset provides API or methods to make modifications to things like speed or apply rotation, etc. to extend the functionality and integrate with our own code, without modifying your code itself ?
3. How do I control how fast the car turns/rotates ?
4. Possible to not use sphere collider ? My game/car needs cars to go through each other and not actually collide, so only colliders I use are trigger colliders, but now using a sphere collider is causing gameplay problems

 

@shubhank008 I did include a readme file but I'll be the first to admit it's not much. I'm going to work on a proper manual as soon as I get the time. I'm just busy all the time haha

Regarding your other questions;
1. You can increase the maximum speed and acceleration for a while, that should do the trick.
2. More or less. Technically the script TinyCarPlayer.cs is just a template, so you can make a copy and tweak it and it shouldn't interfere with the controller.
3. Change the value of TinyCarController->maxSteering. The higher the value, the faster the car will turn.
4. You can change the collision layer of the controller and uncheck it in TinyCarController->collidableLayers to make sure the controller doesn't interact with itself.

 

Hello, i wanted to ask if the controller in general, in detail the surface parameters work for terrain / terrain layers.

 

Hi I bought this because I thought it referred to being a tiny car, not a tiny amount of code. I want a very small car to be able to drive around my existing world. When I size the car down and adjust speeds etc, it stops workign properly. Like I cant control the car once it hits a wall or something. Is there anyway to make this a tiny car but maintain all the controls etc?

 

@DavidJayIndie Lovely work on the controller! Is it possible to add an option to tilt the vehicle forwards when falling? Right now it flattens out and looks a little strange when falling downwards. A tilt forward limit would be excellent for this.

I was able to change the size okay by changing Collider Radius to 0.5 and scaling the visuals object to 0.25.

 

I have been using the Constant Force component with a relative Z force for a rocket boost, which is handy if you want to boost from ramps.

 

It should work fine by changing both the radius and skin width parameters. The skin width should only be a small fraction of the radius to work properly. Maybe that's your issue here.

Sure thing! I actually plan to add this option in update 1.5, which should come around October.

 

The collider seems to be locked somehow, to radius 2, unable to adjust it. Also what is the visuals object?

 

How do I adjust the radius, and where is "skin width"? I cannot see that anywhere.

 

This is what I meant. You need to change the parameters in the TinyCarController script.

 

thanks man, so what value should I use for skin?

 

Thanks ive been playing with the values, it does seem to work much better now. One problem is when I hit a tiny bump (like the edge of a cube that is slightly higher), the car fails to get over it, is there a parameter to fix this? Also once this happens im stuck and I cannot reverse.

 

Yeh doesnt really work to be honest, but for 5 us I guess that's fair enough.Feel cheeky asking for a refund but really doesn't work well when you shrink it down.

 

I'm sorry it didn't work for you. I wish I could have helped but it's probably a combination of very specific conditions that just don't work well together. I'll do my best to make it more flexible and easy to customize in the next update.

 

Hello, i wanted to ask again if you don't mind, if the controller in general, in detail the surface parameters work for terrain / terrain layers.

 

Oh sorry, I didn't see your comment earlier!

Unfortunately it doesn't check for terrain data yet, but that's something I want to add in version 1.5.

 

Thanks man, sorry for my negativity, my level is a bit weird for sure (was designed for fps), I just had high hopes of some kind of mini game mission featuring driving a tiny car around it. Will check out the update when it comes out, or maybe try and get some of my level to you, I could do a video if it helps.

 

No problem, thanks for your Answer. If you add that, then I'm all in.

 

Hello,
Can you add swipe controls to these physics for mobile?
Thanks.

 

I'm afraid touch input is outside the scope of this script. I have no plans to add it in the near future.

 

No, there are no sound effects included in this package.

 

Hello!
Nice work with the controller! really good value for money. thanks!
i have some issues i need help with.
i tried to swap the car with models from toony vehicle set. the wheels axis of the front are different and i can get
the direction and spinning works right. i tried to change some line of code in the controller but it doesn't help.

also, not sure why, the wheels not always spin when i accelerate...

any idea?

thanks!

 

Hi,
Picked up Unity for the first time yesterday. After pouring through many YouTube tutorials regarding car driving controls, I couldn't seem to find something that felt 'good'.
Stumbled upon this, the first paid asset I've used, and pleased to say I had a generally good experience, and works quite well.

Two comments I have:

(1) I found that the car body didn't want to sit at the right height when driving. The code forced it to be a fixed offset relative to the sphere Rigidbody. I added an additional public Vector3 variable to allow a 'bodyPositionOffset' to be applied:

Code (CSharp):

1. vehicleBody.position = car.getBodyPosition() - bodyPositionOffset;

(2) I'd like to implement a 'boost' mechanic. This wants to apply a force to the car in the direction that the body is facing. I achieved this with a script:

Code (CSharp):

1. car.AddForce(carBody.TransformDirection(Vector3.forward) * boostForce);

However, I'm finding that as soon as the boost is removed, the velocity drops back to the controller's calculated velocity. As a future improvement, can I please suggest adding a simple means to achieve this? I suspect a 'boost' function or similar would be a commonly requested feature! In the mean-time, I've set this aspect aside for now rather than making significant changes to the code base.

Thanks

 

I noticed the way the controller handles visuals is not great, so I'm going to change it in the next update. It should fix most of these issues and make it much easier to swap models and customize the vehicle.

I'm also planning to add a "boost" function, seeing how it's one of the most requested feature.

The next update is coming late October to early November, just hang tight

 

Speaking of which, the 1.5 update, which I've been talking about, will come with a higher price tag. The controller will go from $9.99 to $20. This may look like a huge price hike but there's a few reasons for it;

• It will introduce several new features, and make it easier to get up and running with your own 3d models,
• It will finally include proper documentation, with a list of available functions, code examples, etc.,
• I've been cruelly underselling myself and I feel this new price better represents the amount of work I've put towards this controller.

Also, I plan to introduce a separate "pro" package of sorts, that includes a racing system and opponent AI. The planned price is $40, and will probably come around January 2021.

 

Hi David,

That's all great news. Only suggestion I'd throw in, is that as a brand new unity user, the thing that drew me to your asset here is the low price. I figured that if it did what I wanted, great and if not, well it's only $5 in the sale.

What I might suggest is adding a demo of some description to allow people to evaluate it if possible - as a new user, this would give me the confidence needed to take a gamble on a higher price!

Thanks again! Look forward to the update(s)!

 

we

well, i resolved my issue by separating the front wheels spin from the direction movement.
i added another array for the front wheels axle for the direction movement.

and yet, i'm not sure why when i accelerate the wheels spin very slow but in reverse they works fine...

 

An idea for the next update, add support for mobile joystick control...

 

Is there a way with this script to get a car to follow a moving target? There would be no user input, just an object that the car would follow.


My other small piece of advice. In the space of 6 months you've doubled the price of this asset, and announced you're going to double it again, and double it yet again for other advanced features - that's an 8-fold price hike. Things like documentation shouldn't come at an extra cost, it should be part of the package. You are in great danger of alienating your customer base and creating a reputation that isn't a favourable one.

Get those good reviews coming in and you'll make far more sales at a lower price than you'll ever get at the higher price. At $10 people will leave great reviews. At $20 or $40 your customers will expect a lot more and be more critical with their reviews.

 

The $40 pack was for an entire racing game system, not the car controller alone. I don't have plans to release it anytime soon anyway. The $20 price tag would be for Tiny Car Controller, but I'm not charging more only for the additional documentation. As I said in my post above, there's going to be many more features in it that will more than enough compensate for the price. Not to mention that $5 launch price was ludicrously low, even for version 1.0.

As for your question, for the moment you would have to write your own script to steer the car towards a target. However, this is one of the various new features that will be included in the 1.5 update.

 

Thanks for the reply.
I Should have also added...it's a nice script

 

hi, how can i add movement controls to an ui button? i selected input type to button and try few things but cant realy make it work. i would be so happy if you can help. thanks for the great asset!

 

You can call the functions setSteering(delta) and setMotor(delta) when a ui button is down. Both functions takes values in the range -1..1 as their parameter, which correspond to left to right for steering, and reverse to forward for motor.

 

Any update on the release date for version 1.5?

 

I'll most likely have to push the date a bit, my health hasn't been great lately. But progress is being made nonetheless.

 

In the meantime, have a little demo of two new features; turbo boost and car destruction!

 

I have bought the standard version that is out now but I would pay extra for the mobile joystick control too.

 

Well, I guess I could add a simple mobile input script after all, seeing how that's the feature that I've been asked about the most. I'll look into it!

 

Turns out I was able to do a basic mobile input UI that works fairly well with the controller. To be honest, I've been working on this for a while but I didn't want to talk about it until I knew it worked fine. I hope that's what you had in mind

 

I'm very happy to announce that version 1.5 of Tiny Car Controller is now live on the asset store!

- The old "player" script has been segmented into individual components.
- Simplified ground detection parameters (removed skin width and ground check distance).
- Added a speed boost parameter to the controller.
- Added a script for car destruction effects.
- Added a script for mobile (on-screen touch) input.
- Surface modifiers can now take multipliers that are more than one.
- Triggers can now have surface parameters. The ground takes precedence over triggers.
- The car visuals now leans forward when in the air.
- Added new elements in the example scene.

If you already bought the asset prior to this version and would like to upgrade, please make sure you have a backup first, as this version has a lot of changes that may break your code.