TUTORIAL Animation in Assetto Corsa

Here is my small tutorial on how to do a ferris wheel animation for AC with CSP.

the ferris wheel has 3 different parts:

1. the rotating main wheel
2. the gondolas
3. the wheel stand which doesn't move at all

We have to build a hierarchy in 3DSMax so that the gondolas are linked to the wheel. And we have to use helper dummies.
We need to have at least every gondola, the main wheel and the wheel stand as different objects.

Create a dummy (helpers tab) for the main wheel and position it to the center of the wheel. The pivot position of this dummy defines the rotation axis.
Y-axis (green) must point up and z-axis (blue) is the rotating axis and points forward.
Link the main wheel mesh to this dummy.

For the gondolas you are doing the same. Create a dummy for every gondola, move them to the rotating points and check if the pivot points have the right axis orientation. Then link the meshes to the dummies.

Link the gondola dummies to the main wheel dummy.

For better understanding see picture below:


Now we create the animation.
Activate the timeline by clicking on "Auto" and create a Key on Frame 0.
Now move the slider to the frame where you want the animation to stop. (I chose 170/200)
select the main wheel dummy and rotate it 360° clockwise. An animation key will be created autamatically.

Now the wheel should turn but with all gondolas attached.

We want that every gondola stay vertically.
So select every gondola dummy (Cabin_xxx) move timeline slider to 0, create key, move slider to 170 and rotate the gondola dummies 360° counter clockwise. Create the key.

Now when the animation looks good in 3DS Max export the fbx with Animation activated in export panel settings. (Bake Animation)

Open the fbx file in ksEditor. Then open FBX Animation in ksEditor (it's the same fbx file)
ksanim file will be created automatically in the same folder.
Now you should be able to play the animation in Animations tab.
And your objects/mesh hierarchy should look like that:


Save as KN5 CAR file. (because of the animation with the different pivot points)

create/edit your ext_config.ini in yourtrackname/extension and move the ksanim file to this folder too.

Code:

[ANIMATED_...]
NODE = Ferris_Wheel
ANIMATION = FerrisWheel.ksanim
DURATION = 60

Node is the main wheel dummy, Duration is in seconds.

incude your KN5 file in your track layout.ini like this:

Code:

[MODEL_0]
FILE=FerrisWheel.kn5
POSITION=0,0,0
ROTATION=0,0,0

If every thing goes well, this is how it should look in game:


I hope this helps getting more and more nice aninations in AC. Maybe someone can add how to do this with blender.

 

Indeed, excellent write up! I've been meaning to post my findings with animation and custom sounds, thanks for getting the ball rolling!

There is also the possibility of having objects follow a path constraint and skinned meshes (see Road America flying objects and track marshals). I'll contribute soon

 

Yes. I am redoing my helicopters to follow a path (3DSMax - Motion Path Constraint) in Goodwood FOS now. It works in the same manner as described above.

 

Doing track marshal animation looks a bit more time consuming.

 

Thats awesome! Pro tip, you can set the path constraint to control speed based on spline vertices, forgot the setting as I'm not on my design PC.. That way you can ensure the copter takes off and lands slower than when in flight,

Also, feel free to use the bank file I created for Road America, there's a helicopter sound in it, code to use it is in the config file.

 

Thanks for the tip! BTW can you perhaps send me the FMOD studio package file of this racetrack.bank? I'm still struggeling with bank creation.

Ahhh... and I get into this BLM lights CTD problem as well. Must be something in the config.ini.

 

BLM lights app is indeed causing it to crash, Blamer is aware and working on a solution. In the meantime, it needs to be disabled when running Road America.

Will send you the FMOD files soon

 

Ilja added support for skinned mesh animation in tracks, so after I experimented a bit, finally got it to work.

This is the next step I’m working on:

 

I've used these tutorials for character rigging in 3ds max



Exporting to kn5 works the same as with the ferries wheel

 

A little tutorial on how to make a character with movement would be of great help, I have seen some old video, and I can't finish it. I use makehuman, since it has the 3d modeling created, then mixamo for the movement, then already in 3dmax I think the dummy, but I get an error and I think it's something related to the makehuman. I don't know how to create people, so that's my method. thanks

 

This comes out when I export and then put it in the kseditor, I don't know why or understand it, it is still a failure since I put the model in centimeters or I don't know.

 

Thanks so much for this tutorial, it's been invaluable! Currently working on my first track and managed to get a low poly wind turbine working by following this method using Max. Just for reference, in my case I didn't need the correctly orientated dummy object, the original object seem to work fine despite the local z axis not being in the object rotation axis, but granted it might work because of the relative simplicity in this case compared to a Ferris Wheel. I've attached the Max file if anyone finds it useful to learn from in future.

 

It would be good to see some small tutorial video on how to put that, I tried a thousand times without result, I get an error when exporting from 3dmax

 

I would love to learn how to create that, I tried to create a doll, give it movement and put it in a small circuit, without any result, I saw a video and followed the same steps and nothing, I would like for my earth circuits

 

What video did you watch

 

That’s exactly what you need to do. You are missing a step or 2 if you are experiencing crashes