Ant Traffic Simulator - automated vehicle rigging & traffic setup

107 votes
Version: 
1.00
Date Updated: 
09/26/2010
Author Name: 
Anton Vasilescu

Ant Traffic Simulator

* UPDATED TO WORK WITH 3DS MAX 2014

Ant Traffic Simulator script allows you to rig and animate vehicles to your scene with just a few mouse clicks and it will drastically reduce the time necessary for vehicle animation in visualization scenes.

Select your vehicle and press one button to rig it. Select the path to follow and press a button to have your vehicles following it with proper wheel rotation and steering. Choose the terrain you want to be followed and with couple clicks your vehicles will follow it!

Check the features list below to see how Ant Traffic Simulator script will help you reduce the time spent setting vehicle animations:

  • Automatic vehicle rigging for multiple vehicle styles
  • Automatic secondary motion
  • Path following with proper wheel rotation and steering
  • Terrain following
  • Automatic looping on the path for continuous animation
  • Vehicle speed setting in Miles per Hour
  • Traffic setup with random vehicle placement on chosen paths
  • One click traffic randomization
  • Animated path switching to simulate lane changes
  • One click vehicle stops with easing in and out
  • Quick selection buttons for rigs and vehicle objects
  • Cars per hour calculator for realistic traffic simulation

Visit http://75ive.com/traffic_simulator.html to view the example videos showcasing the majority of the unique features Ant Traffic Simulator has to offer!

Ant Traffic Simulator Panels
Ant Traffic Simulator Panels
Ant Traffic Simulator Panels
Ant Traffic Simulator Panels
Ant Traffic Simulator Panels

Additional Info: 

NOTE: This is a commercial script.

Ant Traffic Simulator is not a plug-in. The scenes created with Ant Traffic Simulator will run the same on computers without the script. You will be able to open, edit and render the scenes on any computer without the need of extra licenses.

Version Requirement: 
3ds Max 9 SP1 and above

Comments

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vasilescu_anton's picture

It seems like the vehicle's

It seems like the vehicle's wheels have either the pivot not centered or the transform matrix got screwed during modeling. Make sure you center the pivot to the object then add a reset xfrom and collapse it. This should solve your issue.

Thanks,
Anton

umerzafar's picture

Help, My car wont set up correctly.

Hello Anton,

This is an amazing script and i am sure a great great time saver. I am dying to see it in action but cause of some foolishness i am maybe not setting up the car correctly. The wheels of my car are behaving separately and rotating sideways. What have i done wrong?

Help.

waydorr's picture

1. Is there a way to you

1. Is there a way to you could give option for loop and no loop for vehicle on path

2. when the body dynamics is on, vehhicles do some kind of funny flip atthe ends of the path, i notice this more when the speed of the vehicles are high

3. could you include option for speed variation to animate change in speed of vehicle, like i said i'm animating a tollgate scene and you know cars will have to slow down at the tollgate

4. also can it be added that one can easily detach the already linked vehicles?

Best Regards
Owolabi

this is a really cool script no matter what

wicq08's picture

Hi Anton, One question, What

Hi Anton,
One question, What happens if one car or bus stops but i have an entire row of cars behind the vehicle that stops? I mean I know that you might tell me to put stops to every vehicule in a row but will these vehicles superposed each other? what I want to do is to stop one car(or bus for example) and then the car behind stops exactly behind without touching or superposing the vehivle already stopped and so on. can you make a video showing this please?
Another cool feature would be to add a driving car rig to control it with the mouse or a game pad like the plugin madcar 1.0 wish is a free plugin that rig one particular car , add an object collision ( road ) and then drive this car in real time with a wheel pad , the mouse or the keyboard. I think it would be cool to have this feature besides the ability to create traffic. well I hope you can clear my doubts.
best regards,
wicq

vasilescu_anton's picture

You're very welcome!

You're very welcome!

wicq08's picture

Thank you Anton , all my

Thank you Anton , all my Doubts are clear now I will buy it one of these days
best regards,
Wicq

vasilescu_anton's picture

All those movements are

All those movements are happening in the viewport due to the spring controller. Here is another video where I hope you can see better the difference between the display and the rendered preview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smdf8yvTFmQ

Thanks,
Anton

wicq08's picture

can see that the jerkiness is

can see that the jerkiness is just a matter of viewport issue , but I was talking about the jerkiness when the bus turn left in your main tutorial video. It is very noticeable that jerky movement , just check exactly minute 30:13 you can see how the bus jumps a lot when is turning left. Perhaps you can make a preview , I think is a RAM preview, to see if that jerkiness happenes when the bus turns right or left. Please do it with the bus since the bus is a lot larger than a car, that is a very strong reason why that movement occurs. again thanks for the video. I hope you can clear this issue.
best regards,
wicq

vasilescu_anton's picture

quick video answers

Here is the video I've promised earlier explaining the closed splines and the viewport jerkiness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLWM1hDD2ug

Thanks,
Anton

vasilescu_anton's picture

Hi Wicq, If you have closed

Hi Wicq,

If you have closed splines it works the same. I had a video with a track like Nascar but decided not to put it online. I'll try to get it on youtube tonight.

Yes, you are right about that jerkiness and you can see it from min 25:50 to 26:00. what is happening there is that the spring controller has to calculate a lot to properly display in the viewport and most of the time will end up doing that. If you save a preview of that or render it, it will look smooth as it has the time to calculate it. I should make a video showing that too :)

Thanks for your comments,
Anton

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