Gameglobe Vehicle Building Guide

Gameglobe Vehicle Building Guide by Siatharus

I’ve seen quite a lot of people asking about vehicle building recently so I’ve decided to make a small tutorial to give you enough information to create your own custom vehicle. So let’s get started.

When creating the vehicle, you must consider the 3 axis in which everything moves along, namely, the X axis (horizontal movement aka left & right), the Y axis (vertical movement aka up and down) and the Z axis (depth movement aka forwards and backwards). For full control over the vehicle, the player must have a way to manipulate all of these values.

Next, lets take a look at the input trigger. The input trigger is capable of transferring the controls for the character to another object in the form of power. The input available are Left, Right, Forward, Backwards and Jump. You’ll notice that each of the first for corrispond to the X and Z axis respectively, but that Jump is the only controller for height. This means we will need to determine a method of controlling one of the axis in both directions, using just one button.

My personal preferences for this is to have the Jump input control the propulsion of the vehicle, allowing the player to choose when to stop and when to go, however, we will explore other possibilities later.

Now the practical part. How to convert the inputs in to movement.

There are 3 key methods for this, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, so I’ll start with the easiest ones and move on from there.

The Propulsion Method

The first one you should learn is the Propulsion method. This method involves simple an Input Trigger and a Directional Mover. Point the Directional Mover in the direction you want the vehicle to move, set the speed, power it with the input trigger, and glue the vehicle to it. No worries at all.

This method is crude but effective, having one for both the left and the right of the vehicle will allow the character to move the vehicle left and right, however, the vehicle does not turn, it’s just kind of propelled in the direction that the Directional Mover is facing.

The Rotator Method

So next up, the Rotator method. The Rotator Method involves 2 Rotators, 2 Input Triggers and a Directional Mover.

Set up the Rotators so that they are turning in opposite directions, but at equal speeds, e.g. the on speed of the first rotator could be 10, which would mean the on speed of the second rotator is -10.

You then need to create the directional mover and set its speed. Link both of the Rotators to the Directional Mover and power each Rotator with a different Input Trigger.

Finally, Place the Directional Mover over the center of your vehicle, and glue the vehicle to it.

This method will cause the vehicle to continuously move foward, but the player will have the ability to change its direction, turning it around corners etc.

The Bobbing Method

Next up is the Bobbing Method. This method is rather complex, but it yields some interesting results. For this, you will need, 2 Intersector Props, 1 Inverter, 1 Connector, 2 Directional Movers and 1 Input Trigger.

First off, we will give the vehicle its own artificial gravity, so that it will fall to the ground, but not pass through it.

To do this, take the your Intersector and place it under the vehicle, in line with the vehicles lowest point, and glue it to the vehicle. Set the intersector to collide with Terrain, and set the radius to about the size of the Intersector prop. Next, Create an Inverter and power it with the Intersector prop. Finally, create a directional mover pointing down, power it with the inverter, and glue the vehicle to it.

If this is successful, your vehicle will now fall at the speed the directional mover is set to, before stopping when it hits the ground.

Next up is out “Bobber”. Create an Intersector at the top of the vehicle, in line with the highest point, set it to Terrain, and glue it to the vehicle. Create a connector and set it to =1. Power the connector with the Input Trigger and the Intersector. Next, create a Directional Mover pointing upwards. Make sure that the speed of this Directional Mover is higher than the downward facing Directional Mover from the first section. Power the upward facing directional mover with the Connector.

Finally, glue the downward facing Directional Mover to the upward facing Directional mover.

This method of allows you to control 2 directions of an axis using just 1 button. The style of movement also presents a break from the norm and adds a bit of a challenge to controlling the vehicle.

Hierarchy
As a final note, I’ll explain the hierarchy. This is how you glue your vehicle together to make sure that it works. If done improperly, you can end up with bits an pieces flying in all kinds of directions.

Your first priority in the hierarchy is your control prop. This is a single prop on your vehicle to which everything else is glued. Most commonly, this is the chasis or part of the cockpit. This will be the part of the vehicle you glue to the first directional mover.

Next up is your directional mover hierarchy. My personal preference for this is to glue vehicle to the forward facing Directional Mover so that if the Directional mover is rotated, the vehicle will always be in line with it. You can glue most of the other directional movers on top in just about any order, but be wary of any Directional Movers that are linked to a rotator, you should keep these as close to the vehicle in both position and in hierarchy to try and prevent them offsetting.

Ok, this is all I’m going to do for this guide since theres enough here for you to create your own vehicle with a variation of different movement styles.

As practice, see if you can create a vehicle with all 3 of the above mentioned methods involved. I purposefully made it so that you only need to use 4 input triggers in top guide so that you could create a vehicle with an spare control to do with as you wish, such as controlling a cannon.

If you want to learn more on creating vehicles, I’d suggest having a go at one of the methods above, and trying out different variations to see what you can come up with. There’s plent of other ways to control the vehicle than just those mentioned above.

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