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+--- Thread: HOW TO create a car for VDrift (1) - The .car file (/showthread.php?tid=2205)
HOW TO create a car for VDrift (1) - The .car file - arturo - 12-14-2015
This thread is intended for beginners who want to add their favourite cars to VDrift. I am going to document my own process of creating a car and hope that others won't have to repeat my mistakes. This first post will be edited as I learn things.
The first thing to understand is that there are two almost completely separate processess at work: one is art (the 3D mesh and the textures, which will determine how your car looks), the other is physics (the parameters in the .car file, which will determine how your car drives). The only link between both is that the wheels, whose position will be determined by the values for wheelbase and front/rear tracks set (implicitly) in your .car file, must fit into the bodywork.
We will only deal with the physics side here. I will post separately about how to generate the model in Blender from an absolute beginner's perspective.
In order to create your .car file, you must start by looking at the description of all VDrift car parameters here:
https://github.com/VDrift/vdrift/blob/master/docs/Car_parameters.md
Do you want realistic values for your car? This may not be the case if you are only interested in playing the game and have fun. But for those who want to simulate the behavior of their cars as closely as posible, real values are needed.
If you want a one-stop shop, have a look at this page:
http://www.automobile-catalog.com/
It is the only place that I know where you can sistematically find gear ratios. Unfortunately, it is still in construction. They proceed alphabetically, and at the time or writing they are working on letter N.
Another interesting place, where you can find torque curves in an immediately exploitable format is here:
http://www.zeperfs.com/
You have to register to have access to the full functionality, including the torque curves, but according to my experience this is perfectly safe.
Some parameters will allow you to 'tune' your car performance. Let's look at the brakes. Which pads will you mount in the front and in the rear? Values for the friction coeficient can be found in the Internet from various makers; a very useful table including real-world racing uses can be found at the end of the introduction to this document:
http://www.apracing.com/drawings/2015 Product Catalogue/2015 Brake pads.pdf
Regarding brake bias, you can get a rough approximation using this calculator (set the values to metric first of all):
http://brakepower.com/
However, nothing will replace on-track testing. You have to try and send more braking to the rear wheels until the point where the car becomes unstable.