iCube R&D Group Support Forum

is there any way to animate the car ausing a path in madcar .

Yes. We have "follow object" option. You can animate any object along path and select this object for madcar following.
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I would love to have the ability for the car to 'stick' to the point that it is following (as seen from the top view) so we can have very precise control of movement.

I know this would mean the acceleration and deceleration components of Madcar would have to be ignored -- but Madcar would still be valuable as it handles steering, terrain-following and suspension dynamics.

I'm afraid it is impossible. MadCar animation based on physical simulation. It gives very "natural" result but we can't just turn off part of physical model because other parts will not work properly.

I don't understand why the suspension, wheel roll and ground collision would need to be inextricably tied to braking, steering and acceleration. They influence each other of course, but they should be independently controllable. There was once an excellent plugin for Max called Vehicle Simulator. Like Madcar, this plugin produced very nice natural results, but it offered the option to "pin" the car to a dummy so you could precisely control the car however you wanted (as seen from overhead). The plugin then handled the suspension, wheel rolling, wheel steering and ground following.

MadCar using simulation based on real parameters. I think it is easy to understand. Real vehicle can't move without limits - MadCar also can't do it.

Has anybody had issues with the car zig zagging and swerving back and forth while following a target along a spline?

None of the animation options available (step/frame or samples) seem to help at all, neither does the object speed or segments in the spline.

Any help would be appreciated.

I also have the problem that the car acts in a very jerky way.

Also the car sometimes doesn't follow the target quite close even thought the steering/throttle/brake sensitivity is quite high. Any help or improvements in this matter would be appreciated.

Try new version. "Follow object" algorithm was improved.

In new version https://forum.icube3d.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1032 new driving mode along path added.