Author Topic: How to do animated Window Wipers, speedometer/tacho and steering wheel?  (Read 4889 times)

Im making a vehicle model myself (the Suzuki XL7) for BL, and im going to go to town making it as good as possible.
I may also implement these features into the other vehicles.
Only thing is, how can i make animated window wipers, an animated steering wheel and speedometer/tachometer?
can somebody explain?
Im using Blender 2.79 fyi

i have no vehicle experience but if i were to do something like this i would make each component its own bot and mount it to the right position. then each bot like (window wipers) would have an animation or whatever and can be called at will using playthread();

the main issue would be what buttons the player could press to activate these animations

The numpad (brick movement controls) like GTA SA has

Making the steering wheel have an animation is quite simple, it doesn't need any code either you just define it as "steering".

First you start the animation with the steering wheel fully turned 90 degrees to the right, or whatever you want it fully turned to the right at. If you're using Ports plugin you create a marker at this frame and name it "steering:start", next you move over about 10 frames then animate the wheel turning fully to the left and you place another marker saying "steering:end". Make sure that the steering wheel turns correctly from right to left in the amount of frames you use.

I would resent window wipers in a world where the rain goes through everything, so it's not something I would implement, but I could help you with it

speedo/tacho are probably something we could reasonably do, but I'd have to go about it in a way I've never done before. The number of objects on the Crown Vic is what turns it into crash-inducing garbage.

I've got steering wheels down pat, though. I could make a tutorial if enough people were interested


Lately I've been responding poorly to life, and I might be too busy pitying myself, but I would be willing to help with these things in greater detail on a day that isn't today.

Lately I've been responding poorly to life, and I might be too busy pitying myself, but I would be willing to help with these things in greater detail on a day that isn't today.
Are you ok?

Here's how I do it in Blender 2.79


1. Add an empty (I name it stw, but the name doesn't matter)
2. Rotate the empty on its X axis to make it match with angle of the steering wheel.
3. In transform settings (press N to bring it up) set the rotation mode to "YXZ Euler"
4. Parent the steering wheel object to the empty
5. In the timeline window make a marker by pressing M.
6. Move the green bar by 60 frames and add a second marker. (Though the distance between the two markers is up to you, but keep in mind that the bigger the distance, the slower the steering wheel turns).
7. Select the first marker, press ctrl M and name it "steering:start" This will be the start of your steering animation.
8. Select the second marker and rename it to "steering:end"
9. Put the green bar to the first marker.
10. Rotate the empty on its local Y axis by 90 degrees (hit Y twice to rotate something on its local axis)
11. Press I to make a keyframe
12. Move the green bar to the second marker.
13. Rotate the empty by 180 degrees along its local axis.
14. Press I again to make the second keyframe.

You can check your work by sliding the green bar around in the timeline window. If you did everything correctly, you should see your steering wheel rotating along nicely.

Keep in mind the exporter will export all animations by default. You can choose which animation to export by selecting its markers, then in the exporter menu check "selected markers only".

Are you ok?
Yes, generally speaking. Standard struggle for self-worth. Yesterday evening was productive, but difficult.

Limiting that issue to Blockland, I keep thinking about cars but wondering whether people enjoy driving them enough to make it worthwhile

Limiting that issue to Blockland, I keep thinking about cars but wondering whether people enjoy driving them enough to make it worthwhile
This has been the question on my mind for literally forever because i'm at war with 85% of all vehicle mod devs on blockland. They always hog the add-ons section with vehicle megapacks and im always like 'hmm when has 30 different vehicles ever been applicable for anything outside speedkart' but i never want to bring it up because then i'd get a ton of flak from all the vehicle devs

vehicle add-ons are super niche and built around a very broken system that blockland barely holds together as functional. they rarely have any practical use but are made in huge numbers (more than brick packs). im sure people who make exclusively vehicles understand to a certain extent how limited the options are for vehicles in blockland. you can drive them around, maybe fly them, but that's pretty much it

im not invalidating anyone's dev skills here, like all the vehicles are super well made and have a ton of work put into them, but they really dont have much use.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2018, 03:11:23 PM by thegoodperry »

i have no vehicle experience but if i were to do something like this i would make each component its own bot and mount it to the right position. then each bot like (window wipers) would have an animation or whatever and can be called at will using playthread();

the main issue would be what buttons the player could press to activate these animations
or just animate the portions of the vehicle model directly and skip all this extra stuff lol

Yes, generally speaking. Standard struggle for self-worth. Yesterday evening was productive, but difficult.

Limiting that issue to Blockland, I keep thinking about cars but wondering whether people enjoy driving them enough to make it worthwhile
it sucks that vehicles aren't used much. im guilty of never using vehicles. but think of making mods this way: its just a different way of "building" with the game - you're building the mod instead of something with bricks. if you enjoy doing it, that's all you really need to have. another way is to make them specifically for your own server idea/build, like that one drivearound server filipe did

hope that helps with whatever's making you feel down about making vehicles.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2018, 04:02:15 AM by Conan »

Yes, generally speaking. Standard struggle for self-worth. Yesterday evening was productive, but difficult.

Limiting that issue to Blockland, I keep thinking about cars but wondering whether people enjoy driving them enough to make it worthwhile

I can't speak for Blockland as a whole but I can speak for my server.

Vehicles are probably the most popular type of add-ons. As of writing this 6 out of the 10 most popular downloads on Blockland Glass this week are vehicle related (Passenger Train, Emperor 79, Hiro, IVS, CVS, Bengs 190).

New brick packs and events etc might be more useful but people don't anxiously await their release and always speculate about what will come out next for those types of add-ons. When people request new add-ons for my server they are almost always vehicles, and people get excited whenever a new vehicle comes out and play with it a lot.
Vehicles in Blockland may not always serve a practical purpose but neither do a lot of things in life. People enjoy playing with them, and they are very useful for roleplaying, taking realistic photos, or making videos.

There are a lot of vehicle add-ons for Blockland but the ones released in the last year or so by you, Barnabas, and Filipe1020 are much higher quality than the ones released before that which makes the older ones seem very outdated and redundant.

Vehicle add-ons might not be the most useful but that doesn't mean people don't appreciate them, so if the only reason you don't feel like making vehicles is because you don't think people will appreciate them then you should continue to make them because it simply isn't true.
The entire game's population may not appreciate vehicles but many people do, myself included.

Plus, if it wasn't for you we wouldn't have high quality service vehicles that people have been wanting since I joined this game in 2009 such as a functioning schoolbus, firetruck, and mailvan.

Emperor 79
ah stuff they should be downloading '80 instead

but thank you for your kind words

and I apologize to anyone who would much rather have new planes and boats :D
I don't know how, but I became a car guy. Wait, it's because my dad is one. That was easier to explain than I anticipated.

Another thing i wanted to ask, i want to do hands on wheel, but with only 1 hand on the wheel, like in Watch_Dogs 2


not possible because every blockhead is a law abiding citisen