I created grass physics that is realistic for both street driving, and racing

So a bit back I made a thread regarding beamng's grass physics and its pretty bad. I was sick of flipping upside down on asphalt and then hitting a patch of grass and watch the car glide over it as if the grass was just asphalt but less grippy. So I took matters into my own hands. Luckily beamng is very community and mod friendly and allows you to mod the game extensively (including ingame files). So I went into the game engine files and started to modify the grass in the ground model files. After about a week of constant tweaking I finally made the perfect grass. Note did this EXACT same testing with the same cars same map and same area before and after the custom grass was made

Edit: I released the grass you can install it here: https://www.beamng.com/threads/realistic-grass-physics.73869/#post-1229426​

Here is the first photo and the details are below.

Car: Stereotypical daily driver car.
Type of crash: Loss of control
Speed at loss of control: 44 mph
Angle of hitting the grass: about 75 to 85 degrees.
Terrain condition: A slight slope or ditch on the side of a road
Speed when vehicle made contact with grass: 31 mph
Result with original grass: Car stayed completely on the ground and slid through the grass and hit the brick wall at about 24 mph. The vehicle sustained a cracked headlight and a indent in the bumper



Result with custom grass: Car's left side wheels were raised off the ground and the car came to a complete rest on all 4 tires. The vehicle sustained no physical damage


Here is the second photo and the details are below.

Car: Standard family SUV
Type of crash: Loss of control
Speed at loss of control: 83 mph
Angle of hitting the grass: about 75 to 85 degrees.
Terrain condition: A slope or ditch on the side of a highway
Speed when vehicle made contact with grass: 57 mph
Result with original grass: SUV slid across the ditch and slid to a stop on the other side of the highway on all 4 tires. Vehicle sustained bumper and tire damage from a large bump in the ditch



Result with custom grass: SUV's rear wheels dug into the grass causing it to flip. SUV barrel rolled 4 times before coming to rest on the other side of the highway. Vehicle sustained heavy suspension damage, slight roof damage, and lots of cosmetic damage to the body.

Here is the second photo and the details are below.

Car: A vintage prototype race car
Type of crash: Impact with wall
Speed at impact: 119 mph
Angle of hitting the grass: about 65 to 75 degrees.
Terrain condition: A flat but slightly bumpy grass
Speed when vehicle made contact with grass: 127
Result with original grass: Car slammed into inside concrete wall causing the front end to become airborne. Vehicle slid across the grass on all 4 and sustained massive front end damage.



Result with custom grass: Car made front end contact with inside concrete wall causing the front end to become airborne. The left rear wheel dug deeply into the grass causing the vehicle to flip. The car flipped side over side end over end many times before resting on all fours. Vehicle sustained massive chassis, body and suspension damage from the flipping.

Heres a video of the grass in action as well


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That's a really cool concept.
Do you have any video of this?

 

this is really impressive! i'd love to see more of this!

 

the idea sounds really good but as Zero said, im not really convinced unti i see a proper video

 

Give us video. Now.



Pretty please.

 

I love this, this is something that has been always been on my mind, and something that I almost made myself haha. Would love to see a video, and would be great to have if you decide to release.

 

It is very good thing to hear.i am very eager to watch your video

 

Huh cool

 

What exactly was done to the in-game files? Was the friction coefficient of the grass just adjusted?

Cool work!

 

the etk 800 is very much a wagon not an suv but whatever

Finally grass isnt literally asphalt with crap textures!

 

I completely rewrote the grass physics in the ground model files in beamng. I bet alot of people just think I copied the sand physics and pasted it into the grass but grass and sand are 2 completely different materials so I had to make it from scratch kinda. It took lots of thinking and logic to get the perfect grass that works at low and high speeds realistically. In conclusion, ever seen how iracing handles grass? I pretty much made it like that but with changes to make it realistic for street cars too. I'll make a video soon showing some demonstrations

 

This is amazing. I look forward to the video and possible use of this. I've always wanted realistic dirt/grass physics in the game, and it always felt odd and irritating trying to create a loss-of-control accident that included a roll-over.

 

Well heres a short showcase video I mocked up. I would love to release this but I doubt the mods would approve it since it directly mods the beam files. Maybe I can try to get them to make it the default new grass idk.

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Just release it on the Forums?

 

Thats the problem. It involves directly modifying the beamng files which I think is against the rules in beamng. Correct me if i'm wrong please if not then i'll surely release

 

I'm not sure, but since it's on the forums you can probably release it here alongside with a tutorial. If you want you could ask Nadeox1, but I don't know if he'll answer.

 

mods that rewrite core game files aren't anything new. it's just not something that can be in the repository.

 

Just like the traffic ai mod, this will probably be something the devs implement.

 

its a bit too sticky, you should make it more like mud, where if you go off you dont get much grip, but you can dig into it, and if you go into it fast you can roll. Fast means 150 mph.

 

I like that it's like soft dirt right now, although perhaps some variations for different areas wouldn't be out of order.