tyre/tire selection

[zimluura]

i was originally thinking that most cars would have its own oem_wheel.joe file in its own directory. 'cause some wheels are really tied to the car that they came with.
for instance:
http://www.cartype.com/pics/3934/full/el..._wheel.jpg

got all of the car wheels imported and scaled in blender a while back (put the exporting on hold while we figure out how to position things in the .blend).

but in the case of cars that have an oem_wheel.joe, then those should have a way we can set the mass and inertia for the wheel itself. but it's pretty rough because on most of the powerful rwd sports cars, the rear wheel will be much wider than the front, and so at least some of it has to come from the tire code, and assumptions about the wheel mass increase based on the tire's size.

but perhaps a mass that gets added to the computed wheel mass. maybe inertia as well though i don't think it matters all that much in the case of hubs and axles where the radius is comparatively low. but i'm not really sure, it's been years and years since i did any rotational inertia equations.

so if making say the 10-speed bicycle we'd definitely need a custom oem_wheel.joe with a really thin tire code, which with the custom wheel mesh could be fine-tuned (oem_wheel.cfg maybe, or just in the .car file). but if they put some 22" spinners from a cadillac pimp-wagon there would be a huge performance decrease.

also i think practical tuning will just get better. the # Lateral force, Longitudinal force, and Aligning moment are certainly things i've never touched before, not really sure if other car builders do or not. frankly, for all i know the settings i copied for the tc6's wheels are equal to a monster truck, or perhaps a baby carriage.

btw - been working on the LE all week. the headlights are evil evil evil. went to a dealer yesterday to take a bunch of photos of them (at strange angles). hopefully i'll get it up in the next week or two. man, swoopy cars are so pretty, but i'm starting to hate modeling them.