Another update on Project Car Crash!
Until now, most of the project has been focused on the vehicle simulation itself: soft-body deformation, detachable parts, suspension damage, windows, and crash physics.
But since I already had rigged crash-test dummies with physics-driven ragdolls, I had a slightly dangerous thought: why not let you actually walk around and get into the cars?
So I added a basic third-person controller. You can now walk/run around the environment, enter a car, drive and crash it, get back out of the wreck, then walk over and jump into another vehicle.
The dummy can also transition between animation and ragdoll physics, so it interacts physically with crashes and the environment rather than just being a visual character.
It’s still very early and the environment/graphics are obviously WIP, but this small addition changed the feel of the project much more than I expected. It’s starting to feel like an actual physics sandbox rather than just a collection of crash tests.
The project is built in Godot 4 with Jolt, with the vehicle deformation system implemented natively in C++.
Video:
Would be interested to hear what other Godot devs think, especially whether you’d prefer this direction as a free-roaming destruction sandbox or something more focused around individual crash scenarios.