Hi I’m new to unity and was wanting to start with something simple like a car. Reading tutorials I get the feeling the wheel collider is relatively new. Can any one suggest a good tutorial for building a realistic car setup
Thank you.
First, welcome aboard. I have two suggestions.
Since you didn’t state any previous knowledge of game design and programming, I’ll assume you have little or none. So, the first thing you should do is go to the Unity tutorial pages at Learn. Get use to Unity’s interface, and workflow by completing several of the examples found there. If you have no programming experience this is a good place to start also. Time spent here will pay off later when you want to do your own projects.
Secondly, and more to the point of your question, Google. There is an amazing amount of information to be found there. Some are Unity generated documents and examples, but a lot more are user posed examples and information. Some are great, others not so much, some are recent and others not so much, some old information is still good and valid and others not so much. If you’re going to learn Unity, you will being using Google quite a bit, so get started now.
Best of luck on your projects.
Hi Bill ,
Thanks so much for your reply. Maybe my post was a bit open ended, my apologies. Here is what I’m looking for. I’m looking for tutorial that the continuity found helpful, something more advanced than what is currently available on the unity tutorials page. My experience with Unity is minimal, one simple game and every tutorial on digital tutors ( or what ever it’s called now ). I work with dynamic system and C++ for a living so programing dynamics is my bread and butter. Im new to C# but know my way around unity UI. Any good material found would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.
Ok then…
Working your way through C# shouldn’t be a problem, but there are things in C++ that you’ll wish were in C#.
I’m guessing you saw the Unity page stating a new implementation of the wheel collider. This is just an update in the physics engine and all parameters work the same. There is a car model and a car controller in the Standard Assets package in the asset store. It’s free, so the best start is to pick apart the demo. A quick Google search brought up many hits for car controllers tutorials. Couldn’t tell you any particular one is good or not, but when I need help, Google is my friend.
Probably should mention there are a lot of really helpful folks here that know much more than me. Someone else might have other advise.
One more thing…
I’m not sure if you’re doing a game or simulation. A good car controller incorporates a lot of physics beyond the wheel collider. Unless you are adept with Unity’s physics system, it’s going to be tough for a first timer. Unity’s physics engine does not accurately represent real world physics. Areas are accentuated or attenuated to make things visually work in a game environment.
That being said, there are several car controllers and complete projects in the asset store. Eddy’s car package is one of the best and complete. If you want to be the DIY guy, your going to have to cover a lot of ground that is available in one of these packages. On the other hand, if you want to make a car race game, grabbing a prebuilt quality controller let’s you avoid that whole area and allows you to focus on the actual game environment and objectives.
You’ll also want to delve into Unity’s Particle System for tire smoke, fire, and sparks. And possibly mesh deformation for damage. It get’s a lot more complicated than just a wheel collider. Tutorials will get you started but nothing is complete and you’ll have to fill in the blanks yourself. A package will allow you to jump straight into your project, but you probably will not learn as much about car controllers as you would building from the ground up.
It’s your project, go the way you want to go, but remember, you have to start. Even if you get started in a wrong direction, that journey will have taught you something that will apply to the next attempt. Game creation is simply a series of micro problem solving. View some tutorials and see what you can do, get a prebuilt package and see what you can do, sadly the best teacher is failure, so accept that you will and keep trying.