Arcade vehicle physics w/drifting. Advice needed!

Unity Engine
1

Hi everyone.

I’ve been looking to make an arcade racer for years now but always felt that vehicle assets found online don’t really work for what I want to create.

I have experimented in the past with creating my own vehicle physics but i’m not the best programmer ever so never really got far. That being said, I found working on them to be quite a fun learning experience so I want to take another crack at it. My issue is that I have not been able to find any documentation online that goes over how to create the style of vehicle physics I want to create.

The style I’m going for is something along the lines of Split/Second which is fast and allows you to enter into controlled drifts when tapping the brake.
Here’s some gameplay to show it off:

The drifting is the main thing I’ve struggled to find any information on. I do not want it to feel like you’re losing control of the car and I do not want it to feel artificial either. The game I want to make is intended to be a spiritual successor to the burnout games so drifting will be an important part of the core gameplay and I want it to feel good.

I found this video during my last attempts and I think it’s a good start but It’s for a very different kind of racing game so doesn’t delve into drifting all that much (and the drifting it does talk about is completely out of control drifting)

I understand that what I am talking about is very very difficult to get across in videos or by my description and I apologise for that. I’m sure anyone familiar with the style of arcade racer I am talking about (Burnout, Split Second, NFS: hot pursuit) will understand what i’m after though, so any pointers in the right direction would be fantastic as I’ve been looking for so long now! It would be great to finally know how to pull this off and work toward getting this dream project off the ground!

Many thanks!

2

A ton of what makes those games fun is the camera.

Watch that Split Second Elite video above and only pay attention to the camera and all the incredible work they do:

  • bobbling around at speed
  • responding to roadway bumps and thumps
  • banking when turning
  • banking more when sliding / drifting
  • changing zoom / FOV when accelerating, decelerating (Alfred Hitchcock effect)

As for the car I imagine they have some form of a raycasting to find the nearest X points and average it and then smoothly move the car along that, with some up and down to simulate suspensions crush/extend. The key is they keep it very smoothed out, and I bet they’re just averaging it over a few frames.

The sliding dynamic is just sort of an arbitrary point when the car’s body angle begins to oversteer inwards, and yet they continue to help you around the corner, less and less until you lose control. It’s just very smooth and has a lot of possible “step” points to make you feel “oh man, it’s sliding now…” … and “oh it’s almost gonna let go…”

But the camera bobbles also back up the feeling of sliding.

Fiddle with some stuff, make things go fast along a track at low angle, use Cinemachine to rock and bobble and tilt the camera and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how cool your stuff will look.

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