Measuring Crash Impact on Sides of Vehicle in Unity

Unity Engine
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1

The problem with this code is that it calculates the crash severity based on the total impact force (impactForce), which works well for direct hits (like head-on collisions). However, when the car gets hit on the side, the force might not be strong enough, or the calculation doesn’t properly register side impacts as crashes. This happens because the impulse (collision.impulse) doesn’t always capture the direction of the hit or how significant the crash is when it happens on the side of the car.

       void OnCollisionEnter(Collision collision)
        {
            if (collision.transform.CompareTag("Car"))
            {
                hitCar = true;
                Vector3 impulse = collision.impulse;
                float impactForce = impulse.magnitude / Time.fixedDeltaTime;
                if (impactForce>maxImpactForce)
                {
                    crashed = true;
                }
                else
                {
                    Debug.Log("Impact force: "+impactForce);
                }
            }
        }

Whats the best way to detect and calculate severity of crash that also includes side of cars?

Any suggestions or code examples to handle side impacts properly would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

2

you can get collision contacts, would that give more info?

3

Ive tried them, they confused me a bit.

if (collision.contacts.Length > 0) 
{
    ContactPoint contact = collision.contacts[0];
    Debug.Log("Contact Point: " + contact.point);
    Debug.Log("Contact Normal: " + contact.normal);
}

What do the three points indicate? The documentation doesnt go into detail on what they mean