Simulation Nodes in Launch Control! – Version 1.3.5 is out:

With the launch of Blender 3.6, we open up the doors to a new world of possibilities with Launch Control!
Automatic Skidmarks generated in Real-Time is just the beginning!

Apart from that, we also made it easier and quicker to animate the car using your own Custom Path.

Launch Control will take care of animating the car so it stops at the end of your desired path.
All you have to do is to draw the path, define the start and end frame for the animation in the scene and off you go!

More Sim Nodes madness to come!
We are currently working on a new and improved physics system based fully on Simulation Nodes!
It will take the realism of the motion to the NEXT level!

About Launch Control:

Animating cars should be Fun!
LC (Launch Control) strives to make vehicle animation accessible and eliminates the usual problems you stumble over, when turning your action-sequence dreams into reality (a virtual reality, that is).

The simple interface packs a ton of power and in the “Manual Gearbox” you have a world of customization options to tune LC to your liking.

1. Lazy Rigging
– one-click setup!

Well… The headline kinda says it.

When rigging with LC the add-on recognizes a long list of tags to automatically detect wheels, body, brakes, headlights and with some math-magic rigs your 4-wheeled car for you.
Helpful pop-ups will appear if naming adjustments of wheels, body etc. are needed. (Please check the documentation for requirements for one-click rigging)

In the “Manual Gearbox” it is possible to alter rigging options to make LC play well with your own pipeline.

2. Animate like a BOSS
– with neat presets!

Do you want your ride to jump, drift, wiggle, do donuts, go offroad or all of the above?

LC is designed to take care of all of these things. The presets give you a headstart no matter what you want your new “wheels” to do.

2.1. Make it your own!

Once you are set up with a preset, it’s easy to build on top of it.

Add as many extra control points as you want and hit the “Update Driving Path” button.
This makes sure that the existing animation will not be offset like it normally would when animating without LC.

3. Art Direct Physics
– for Trucks, Super cars, and even RC cars!

Simming can be a pain.
That’s why LC has dialed in presets that will cover you in most cases – and most importantly… LC bakes FAST!

If you want full control, head into the “Manual Gearbox” and reveal the physics sliders to manually set the weight, softness, wiggle speed and more.

3.1. Fast iteration with PostFX!

Sometimes you just want more body-roll, less body-bounciness and a tad more pitch.
– Well, in that case just fix that in real-time with PostFX – No need to re-sim over and over again.

Automated Ground Detection
– optimizing detection on the fly

When you have built out your stage, drop all the objects that will affect the movement of the car into the “groundDetection” collection. High poly, low poly, messy – doesn’t matter, just throw it in there.
A grid is wrapped over this collection, removing any unused areas to save performance. You can preview the grid and increase/decease the quality in the “Manual Gearbox”.

Automatic Camber and Caster
– the small details that makes it all pop!

Maybe you have heard about camber and caster angles? Well, I hadn’t…

But! Because of the advanced suspension geometry in cars today, wheels do not just turn around the Z-axis like most of us imagine. No, no, camber and caster tilts the rotation axis in 2 unique ways and even though the rig does not physically do this, it takes care of visually copying this behaviour for you. And with the UI slider above the car, you can control the amount of camber/caster to your liking.

Plays well with “Car Transportation”
– and other epic model libraries

With “Car Transportation” and Launch Control together, you will be able to drop a wide range of cars into your scene and rig them with Launch Control with just 1 click.
Check it out over here: https://blendermarket.com/products/transportation

Speed-o-meter
– helps you animate for realism

Photo-realism is often a pain to get right. And one of the things that often feels off in car animations is the speed. – So that’s why LC has a speed-o-meter that shows you the speed of the car in real-time for you to ground your animation in reality (I mean, if you want – I don’t judge if you want some TrackMania-type craziness.)

HDR Headlight Texture Presets
– well.. They are headlights

6 included headlight presets can be applied to make your night renders look even more real. Both high and low beam spot lights are set-up in the rig and will be automatically rigged if headlights are detected in the car mesh.

Jump generator
– with projectile Physics!

It turns out that it’s quite difficult to make a car jump look real – So I thought… Why not simulate it with projective physics? And well.. See result above.

HDR Headlight Texture Presets

Lights up your world

6 included headlight presets automatically sets up nice light beams in front of the car. The beams play well with volume objects, to create a sense of depth in the scene.
Ackermann Steering Geometry

You need it in your life!

Car animation always look great – until the car is going through a curve. Ackermann in LC takes care of that and lets you put your focus on what matters – The epic animation!
Automatic Camber & Caster

Realistic and adjustable

Wheels do not just turn around the Z-axis like most of us imagine. Camber and Caster are important to make the wheel motion look right. – Adjusted to your liking of course.
Automated Ground Detection

Drag & Drop

Place all objects the vehicle is interacting with into the “Ground Detection” collection. High poly, low poly, messy geo – it doesn’t matter – LC will take care of it.
Speedometer

Animate for realism

Knowing the speed at any moment in time is crucial for realism. Read the speed from inside the 3D View or in the UI panel.
Skidmark generator

Based on tire pressure

One-click setup and nice results right away.

Use the intensity and variance sliders to adjust the look of the skidmarks.

Multi Workflow

Open up for Multi-Car Madness!

Rig and animate as many vehicles as you want. Color-coded driving paths and the Multi-Edit mode makes it easy to control each individual vehicle or all vehicles at once.