Hello! I'm pretty sure this has been posted somewhere but I'm posting this again because I'm wondering if the developers are considering this feature. As the title states, this suggestion is involving the movement of the shifter in manual cars in BeamNG.drive. Basically, (like an automatic transmission) when you shift to first gear, the shifter moves into 1st. When you shift into 2nd it moves into 2nd, and so on and so on. If there is any mod for this I would like to know.
see, the problem is in the Jbeam. if you want a part to move in a straight line or arc? Easy. there is a special type of node that will lengthen or shorten based on a command. IIRC, thats how pedals, automatic shifters, and headlights move in game. For manual shifting, there would need to be built in logic somewhere that knew which nodes to lengthen and shorten for each vehicle. Not only that, but say a sharp turn is coming up, and the driver opts to downshift directly from 4th to 2nd, skipping 3rd all together?. There would need to be separate animations for every possibility, and in order to keep up, it would have to somehow anticipate H- shifter moves before they happened. What if I'm in 3rd gear, and I just suddenly put the car in neutral while moving? shifter goes to the neutral position. okay, but what if I shift from 3 to N to 6 and then to 5? Does the shifter spring into neutral between every gear each time? How do you tell the difference between the neutral between gears and the neutral position you'd use to park? TLDR, this would be a nightmare to implement.
Nodes can't lengthen, I think you are thinking of beams. Pedals and automatic shifters use props (meshes that don't flex and can be animated) and pop up headlights use hydros (beams that can change length).
Indeed, all interior objects are just animated, there's no jbeam at work there to my knowledge. And having an animated manual shifter is definitely possible. I recall an old mod (I believe the Honda Del Sol mod that used to be around these forums) that used an animated shifter to pretty good effect.
Yep, and I recently created a mod for the ETKi but it didn't make the repo because it's overriding vanilla files. I'm still considering if I should release it on forums or not.
i think you made a good point, but yes- shifter movement is possible with a lot of time and trial and error. the only issue i see is it kinda stretches the model a bit when you use hydros to move stuff. EG, NOCARGO's shifter mod suffers from this.
A more detailed jbeam could probably fix this problem, but at the cost of performance. --- Post updated --- Here's a working shifter I made a while ago using props. I got the idea from the bolide track toy by itsyourboy. It uses lua from the sunburst for displaying gears, there is a different shifter model for each gear. The advantage of this is better performance, but unfortunately there is no animation between gears.
Wow that's super cool ! This also crossed my mind when I started making mine. I knew this had to be possible. This is the birth of animations imo cause if you code some time intervals between some extra frames (models in his case) I gues you can create a moving effect ! Thank you for sharing that It always does cause the node/beam structure is flexible. I've never put any more attention to reinforcement than needed when I made shifters but in case of the ETKi lights it took me hours and hours to prevent the grill, bumper and spoiler lip from moving like really moving inches you know. Even if you check out vanilla hydros they stress the structure too. Maybe after a lot (I mean really a lot) of time and effort spent on node/beam values something in the form of realistic stresses can be achieved. Anyway I'm not really disturbed by a little movement unless it spoils immersion of course. --- Post updated --- Oh yes I'm thinking a lot about creating adjustable electric mirrors too but not before they offer me a decent viewing.
