Rigging a Car in Blender (Quick and Easy Tutorial)!

In this video, we're going to talk about a quick, easy way to rig a car so that the wheels turn automatically when we change the car location in Blender!
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Model Credit - (Free) 1972 Datsun 240k GT
Download Link - sketchfab.com/3d-models/free-...
Author: Karol Miklas
Model Attribution - CC Attribution - Share Alike
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Introduction
0:22 - Model Download Location
0:44 - Selecting and Editing Wheel Directions
1:42 - Parenting Your Car to an Empty for easy movement
3:18 - Parenting Wheels to the Empty
3:51 - Linking Wheel Rotation to Car Location
4:04 - Adding a Driver to your rotation
4:55 - Linking our driver to our empty location
5:50 - Adjusting the wheel rotation speed and direction
6:30 - Copying drivers to the other wheels
7:52 - Support the CG Essentials on Patreon :)

[@TheCGEssentials]

Hi everyone! What other kinds of Blender animation tutorials would you like to see? Let me know in the comments below!

[@MysteryFinery]

make a tutorial of how to spin the camera around a character with the camera locked on the character.

[@niemanickurwa]

This was cool, but how to get the wheel to turn round a corner and rotate appropriately? :)

[@apersunthathasaridiculousl1890]

how to get good, i need that

[@skydawn5675]

绑定坦克，并且导入UE4

[@fatcat5323]

I want to see a tutorial about animating the car steering on a path while the wheels still spin in the correct direction

[@RealMaddox]

This is a really cool trick! I also added a driver to the Z-rotation for the front two empties to drive it by the main Empty's Z-rotation so if the car turns, the wheels turn in the correct direction!

[@kimyourneighbour9010]

how do you do that it doesnt work for me could you type in the driver settings please?

[@josen_72]

Cool to learn you're using blender Maddox

[@harlenroseberry5980]

Justin, I have been working with Blender for about 3 months now. I cant tell you how many of your videos I have watched and learned from. This is just one of the many I have been able to use to improve my results. I have been really bad about commenting, so I wanted to say thanks for what you do. I would've gave up on Blender long ago if it wasn't for your and a couple others' videos.

[@clintonmarais884]

excellent careful and straight forward, I've done modeling in blender till it's coming out my ears, which I love, and am just starting the whole animation process and it's amazing how many tutorials, some for beginners even, are just not obvious and precise as yours always are

[@ervinase9661]

Yesterday I was trying to animate the whole thing with keyframes and everything, after this vid I felt blessed. Thank you for the help!

[@scotthamilton7161]

You always seem to know the right amount of functionality to put into a single tutorial. Great job!

[@kenkioqqo]

And this kind of teaching is the reason I subscribed to your channel. Simply top notch!

[@Rarajeje_2024]

Thank you for fantastic tutorial! Very kind and straight forward video with detailed explanation.

[@IschbindeKalle]

I really love that your channel exists. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@jweinrub]

This is one heck of an amazing tutorial dude!!!

[@jasoncatlyn7331]

Thanks for the tips. I did this but with copy rotation constrain and a bunch f other tricks, LOL. This is much simpler, thanks again!

[@oscarblanco1303]

Thank you man, this helped me a lot to understand drivers better. GOd I LOVE THIS CHANNEL

[@tristafrog]

bro you’re literally a lifesaver thank you so much for this!!!

[@doubleustudios2020]

Very clear explanation. Thank you for sharing Justin. :D

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad it was helpful!

[@VandreBorba]

Very cool! Thanks for the video!

[@yearight1205]

I LOVE YOU!!! YOU SAVED MY BUNS!!!! I couldn't get Rigacar to work for the life of me, this saved me!!!!!

[@QuackingFilms]

Great stuff, just what I was looking for - subscribed :)

[@TheCGEssentials]

Welcome aboard!

[@MysteryFinery]

thanks for the tutorial. i wonder if you can make the front wheels turn aswell. can you make us a guide on how to do that?

[@andrewaustin4241]

Very good, thanks for sharing!

[@Runngunrecordings]

legend for this vid mate, watched a few vids followed there instructions, but they all missed the key wording, var*- this was the one to forward my wheel direction correctly, legend

[@jazeface]

wow ! thanks bro!! love from uk

[@betafreal]

Thanks for this tutorial

[@devislugano6464]

thank you for the tutorial this has been of helpful. Great job

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad it was helpful!

[@soulshade9820]

Thanks for tutorial! It's very helpful))

[@alhdlakhfdqw]

thank you very much for your great videos! :)

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad you like them! :)

[@gamerloud7416]

It was very helpful man thank you very much!

[@TheCGEssentials]

You're welcome!

[@saagar20]

Awesome! Just like a WOW!

[@EIendir]

Life saver as always gj !

[@taherahmedpranto4363]

very helpful, thanks

[@andrefouche6052]

Good one! Thanks for sharing

[@TheCGEssentials]

Thanks for watching!

[@arqcgs]

Amazing tutorial!! Thanks for share it! BTW, could you do a tutorial about rigging a crane? And do you think this technique is better than to use armatures?

[@CommonTube]

its very helpful you earned a sub

[@aliensoup2420]

The problem with nearly every wheel rigging tutorial, including this one, is that it only works in one direction. Rotate the parent empty 90 deg. and the wheel doesn't turn. Also, the formula to achieve proper wheel rotation is distance traveled / wheel radius. d/r

[@AndyEngelkemier]

Thank you. How many people are writing basically the exact same tutorial without actually taking that into consideration? Also not only that, but you should be able to take the differential into consideration. You might not be able to see that, but one case you would is if the car is backing up and you've got the wheel cranked All the way to one side, one of the rear wheels would be moving quite a bit faster than the other. They need to be based on their Own location to rotate properly, not just one central parent. I'm trying to figure out how to get a double caster wheel rotating, which is a much more difficult rig because you don't animate the caster, you animate the object (like an office chair) and everything else should just be automatic.

[@aliensoup2420]

@@AndyEngelkemier good points. Its more complicated that it seems. It really depends on the shot. In most cases, cars are simply seen zooming by in one direction. In most other cases, the wheels are turning too fast to make any accurate assessments.

[@AndyEngelkemier]

@@aliensoup2420 Oh, no, I know it's complicated. That's why I'm hoping to find Something that might help me figure it out. Based on what I've seen, it's easiest with bones, but I'm not actually looking at this for a car, but rather for caster wheels. I've solved the caster part, but the wheels rotating I don't have a solution. I'm actually looking into Animation Nodes for it at the moment since that is pretty easy to rig a new one. With bones, for something like that, it's a decent amount of work to get things set up right. With animation nodes, I can just import the nodes, and use them in a new scene. Make sure certain dummies are in the right collection, and it's "rigged." That's the plan anyway.

[@jimmyfelix]

Change the driver object space to local.

[@BlenderArcturus]

@@jimmyfelix I don't how can I thank you. I've been watching tutorials and trying everything to get that simple thing done. I literally wasted an hour and half to make it spin on all axis but thanks to you, I finally did it with a simple click. It is such a simple thing yet literally no one mentioned it(as far as I've seen) on their tutorials and left dozens of people with this problem.

[@leforgestudio6254]

Your tutorial is great. Is the a way you can make the front tire steer left and right

[@chemss123]

Great video ;)

[@Bruceleekungfoo]

Very cool!!! Can you do one of adding a background road with car in motion?

[@user-zz9fn6lj3z]

Helpful!

[@shivaprasadsubramaniyan624]

Good one.. thanks...

[@yt_bharat]

This is super cool

[@TheCGEssentials]

:)

[@himanshusingh4451]

man how your lighting is so awesome can you please make a tutorial on lighting

[@sajcapanalytics7536]

Nice one mate.

[@TheCGEssentials]

Thanks 👍

[@jabstunt]

thank you so much ^^

[@mitchib1440]

THANK YOU!!!

[@themysteriousunknownrevealed]

I love your tutorials, and your doggo! I'm having a hell of a time animating a car. Nothing I'm doing seems to be working. I've tried this method, and the rigacar addon. My only other option is to go the piece by piece animation method... old school. The parent to the wheel empty seems to be overriding the car empty parent. When I move the vehicle... the tire doesn't go with it.

[@thegloriouspictures]

This man is the GOAT. THE GOAT!!!!!!!!

[@Rarajeje_2024]

Once I linked the whole car to the empty object, four empty objects which were parented to the tiers were released. Could you tell me the reason if possible?

[@visualfusionz]

Thank you very much i have always been suffering with will animations...

[@brucemarshall1439]

Hey Justin, that's really cool. Did you get lucky with the variable of 3 or is that a known factor??

[@danbreland3444]

Awesome!

[@TheCGEssentials]

Thanks!

[@zefsam]

Thanks you so much!!!

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad it helped!

[@NaydLazyBones]

Thank You, very useful. BUT, I guess this driver of X rotation won't work anymore if there will be turn 90 degrees as what was X will be Y. So do you have a tutorial of a more complicated way?

[@vinistallucas631]

Awesome

[@mr.editor1400]

thanx for sharing

[@TheCGEssentials]

Thanks for watching!

[@sahyejrah8209]

thanx for this tutorial ,guys if the wheel are not turning just be sure that your car is on the reight axes, ^^, i spent 1 hour to realise it hhahah

[@emrahcifci8139]

thank very thanks :)

[@bilegtni5202]

i'm watching you since sketchup

[@vfxmasterclass5839]

thank you , awesomeeeee

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad you liked it!

[@carbonanimationproductions6537]

thank you!!

[@TheCGEssentials]

You're welcome!

[@warunasanjeeva4105]

What happen when car turns in y direction ? The wheels stop rotating ?

[@ismar.sel_1570]

Thank you very much! It helped a lot. Can you make a tutorial where you create like a highway or a road for the car to drive one, because I've been wanting to make a render about that but idk how to do it. Thanks :)

[@TheCGEssentials]

Possibly - it's pretty simple - just create a mesh for your road and add a texture to it

[@CDArena]

Add a Plane just under the wheels - this will be a short section of road. Add an array modifier to it. Add a curve object. Add a Curve modifier to the plane (select the Curve object you drew the step before). Extrude the curve and adjust to draw your road. Increase array modifier to extend road along the curve. For added bonus, parent the car's empty to the curve. (You may need to re-parent the car to the empty so the empty is Under the car... or Offset the empty) Straight roads are easy.

[@maxdevlin1240]

Ok I've done this but if I put the car on a bezier curve the wheels stop spinning, is it possible to put the car on a bezier and have the driver setup turn the wheels

[@curiositytube5924]

Would you please be able to tell me how you got that cool-looking shadow-catcher? Thanks!

[@aryaman3083]

It's difficult for eevee easy for cycles

[@curiositytube5924]

@@aryaman3083 you're right! But if you look carefully, the shadow catcher is in material preview! Which is odd!

[@Mrgold-ic6ds]

@@curiositytube5924 I know this is an old comment and you probably know the answer. But incase you don't, I think he baked a shadow from cycles and made a transparent image of the shadow to import it into eevee. He might have done something else but I'm pretty sure that's one way to do it.

[@curiositytube5924]

@@Mrgold-ic6ds that really helps!! Thanks a lot!!

[@Mrgold-ic6ds]

@@curiositytube5924 you're welcome!😇

[@iagomendez2807]

Another great video! this will solve many problems Guardar traducción

[@TheCGEssentials]

Thanks! Glad you liked it! :)

[@chrisrogers8448]

Nice Video, How would you rig wheels going over ruff surface? I.e to force contact using suspension

[@TheCGEssentials]

Honestly not 100% sure - I'd probably use some sort of add-on for something more advanced like this - there might be a way to parent it to a mesh somehow?

[@creativehotbox]

I LOVE YOU!!!!

[@TheCGEssentials]

:)

[@muthulakshmijayakumar8520]

thanks

[@silentshadow7946]

Thank u so much..

[@TheCGEssentials]

You are welcome!

[@nikoulph]

The back tires rotate opposite because of world space is negative at they locations... I'm trying to figure out how to use local position to make the wheels turning in the right direction.

[@hazimzufar3023]

what is the advantage of using this method compare to transformation constrain?

[@parks-]

how do i make suspension?

[@seankerber2338]

Is there any add-on or program for blender 3D that will allow me to control / drive a car within blender software using python or without python preferably

[@jasoncorganbrown]

Will this driver and empty method transfer along with the animation via FBX export?

[@pamhampton2588]

I think if you set the driver details to LOCAL rather than WORLD, all of the wheels would turn without having to adjust any of their details.

[@k0omodosavesta241]

the model does not have any textures when I impot it ?

[@QuackingFilms]

So, weirdly when I use this technique my wheel spins one way and then stops and turns the other way...any ideas what I may be doing wrong?

[@TheCGEssentials]

Did you apply any rotations or scale?

[@QuackingFilms]

@@TheCGEssentials I think my wheel had accidently become parented directly to the empty above the car that the var is linked to, so that was confusing it! Also I'm using a different model and the amount that the wheel was moving per frame made it look weird on playback (like when real car wheels look like they are going the wrong way on film). Think I've got there but will need some tweeking!

[@visualfusionz]

how to apply the turn wheel annimation on the car..

[@lmeier48]

Hey thats very clever!! Someone could tell me if this method works to export to unreal engine? I just start to learn by myself and sometimes I fell kinda lost.

[@AmruthChinta]

Why I can't add plane axis, I can't see plane axis after adding it

[@luisdiego8819]

Cool intro expression HUWHATSSUP GUYSSS

[@KADAMBACREATION]

sir please do the scroll paper roll animation.

[@andreamacor4135]

Goood, I'm switching from 3dmax to blender, not for cost of max but because blender is, fresh, smart, fast, frizzy and moore...Blender is fantastic.

[@RAGNES7]

how did you use the sketchfab addon?

[@TheCGEssentials]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/mneagoedaJt7pdU

[@milanpatel3708]

great tutorial.. How can we apply scale to rigged car properly.Normal scaling is getting some error when we applied ground sensor..

[@TheCGEssentials]

I don't understand the question. Have you applied rotation and scale?

[@milanpatel3708]

@@TheCGEssentials yes.. whenever I apply a scale for other objects, it works fine but when I tried to apply a scale for the car model,some parts of the models loses their location a bit.

[@Stopthemotionvideo]

I am having issues with the textures (paint, head light texture, tire texture etc) not showing when I import the file. Is there a way to fix this? Sorry for th dumb question im new to blender!

[@TheCGEssentials]

Are you in Material Preview mode?

[@Stopthemotionvideo]

@@TheCGEssentials well today i learned how to rig a car, and what the material view is. thanks man! 💕

[@juliodlv2372]

Well that's weird cause the weels or turning on the y axes, i don't understand why is it working on your tutorial ? Personnally i put an expression on the y axes ! And you need an other expression tu make the wheels turns when the car turns.

[@verydeadchannel]

Hey i know i am 3 years late but how do i make sure the wheel is continuously spinning? i could only see it spinning from 3 to - 3

[@Evan-rq2ee]

My car loads in when I import it, but I can’t see the empties

[@markbalat6034]

I dont have an add driver option. can someone help

[@aliceacademy146]

I’m not sure why my wheels aren’t rotating when i move the car… i feel like i parented wrong, could anyone help?

[@jokes_toon]

Mine also

[@hsmg.official]

How do you parent your car to an empty?

[@DesignsbyDonBrown]

Will this animation work in Unreal Engine?

[@muhammadusman-ou9im]

7:33, Some Reason One tire is rotating in the wrong Direction.. I think you forgot to edit the "Z" value of the tire set to "0". That's why the tire was rotating in the wrong Direction... Please Try it and then reply it, If it works.. :)

[@StSpoiler]

please How to steering?

[@gouravdas7557]

that was great tutorial but suspension rigging was missing.

[@user-or8sb5rw4w]

The settings that you have are not what I have

[@CreateWithCollins]

I'm going to try this on my low poly car I created in blender.

[@CDArena]

But really, shouldn't it be multiplied by 3.1415927 to prevent rubber loss from the slight difference in rotation and forward movement? Mathz!

[@TheCGEssentials]

I mean...if you want, go for it

[@storylinestudio6954]

I can't find nothing on KZbin maybe you can help can u rig a 3d scanned vehicles like doors, trunk hood steering wheel and windows

[@TheCGEssentials]

Well rigging 3D scanned vehicles is hard because the wheels etc aren't modeled as different parts

[@storylinestudio6954]

@@TheCGEssentials thanks you helped me out alot with blender

[@johnclinton7706]

downloaded the sketch fab addon and the tab wont even show up !

[@TheCGEssentials]

Did you install and enable the add-on?

[@johnclinton7706]

@@TheCGEssentials i followed every instruction

[@daviddahl8562]

I'm using 2.92 I got the zip file in my folder but will not show up in the preferences I'm in need for a rig for blender 2.92 cause for the time being until I find an answer that is the only blender.blend that works on my computer I guess I got to use my own car is what I want any way

[@TheCGEssentials]

What zip file?

[@daviddahl8562]

you don't know how to read

[@TheCGEssentials]

@@daviddahl8562 Interesting - being rude is an odd way to try to get help. Good luck with your zip file I guess

[@daviddahl8562]

I'm not being rude cause I already told you I can not use older blends cause it thinks I'm doing it in a newer blend, seems to be a new issue no ones never heard of before. I was able to disable 2.92 and now have 2.91 same issue I do have a teacer looking into it I was able to send him a blend until then I'm stuck. I would like to have a car rig that works in blender 2.91 they take aw ay alot when updating

[@TheCGEssentials]

@@daviddahl8562 No, you're definitely being rude. "You don't know how to read" is rude, especially because that thing you just said was definitely not in your original comment.