EOV Car Simulation v1.0.0

EOV Car Simulation is car physics for animators in Autodesk Maya. Suspension, grip, drifts and jumps come from a simulation, and you get ordinary keys on every frame. Think of it as motion capture for cars: an honest base you can then finish by hand. Drive the car yourself from the keyboard, or draw a route with a script of stunts and let the smart driver take it.

Drive from the keyboard: WSAD-mocap

Take the wheel right in the viewport: W is gas, S is brake, A and D steer. You can't half-press a key, so the gears cap the speed, each with its own ceiling. The screen shows the speedometer, the gear and where the front wheels point. Missed a turn? Backspace rewinds three seconds and you drive on from there. Cameras switch on the move without stopping the car. When you're done, the drive is already keys on the rig.

The smart driver on a route: Smart-Route

Draw the route with the mouse right on the ground: a click places a sharp point, a drag a smooth one, and the route lies on any bumpy meshes. A corner sharper than 120 degrees tells the driver to stop and reverse. Put flags on the route, press Simulate once, and the whole run drives itself.

Stunt flags

• Ramp - a real mesh that shows in the render, and the car feels exactly that shape;
• Drift - a drift with its length, speed and angle;
• Donut - rings on the spot or around the flag;
• J-Turn - a police turn out of reverse;
• Stop - a sliding stop, then reverse or a pause;
• Speed, Brake, Handbrake, Boost - speed, brakes, handbrake and a boost on a stretch.

After the run each flag in the list shows the frame it was done on, or missed with the reason. A failed stunt doesn't break the run: the driver just drives on. Drag a flag along the curve and the run is recounted in seconds.

Your own car in a couple of minutes

The model needs very little: the body in one group, each wheel in its own. No freezing and no bones needed. Fit to Model measures the wheelbase, the track and the wheel radii and puts the model on the rig. A game car on bones has Fit to Bones. You name the scene's up axis yourself, so Z-up scenes from 3ds Max work too.

Cameras and presets

The ready cameras Chase, Bumper and Cockpit ride on the car and sway with it. Any Maya camera of yours can ride on the car too, in the driver's seat for example. Save a car you have set up as a preset, and Apply Preset to Model puts it all on another scene in one click.

Keys without the plugin

Bake to Keys writes the drive onto the model's own parts and takes the rig off. The scene plays without the plugin and can be passed on.

What it doesn't do

• the car doesn't flip: no rolls or somersaults;
• no body damage or deformation, it is not a crash simulator;
• no steering wheel or pedals as hardware, only the keyboard;
• the result is a base, like any mocap: the final animation is finished by hand;
• a stunt can miss when it has too little room: the flag report says why.

Manual and lessons

The manual in English and Russian opens right from the plugin's window: the gear, then User Manual. Two video lessons, in English and in Russian, go all the way from a bare model to a run with stunts.

At a glance

• System: Autodesk Maya 2019-2026, Windows
• Install: drag a file from the archive into Maya's viewport
• Archive size: about 1.6 MB
• Hints and manual: English and Russian, interface in English
• License: MIT, free, open source