Vortex Studio for Authoring Custom Vehicle Dynamics Models for VR-Engage

VR-Engage uses the Vortex product from CM Labs to implement high-fidelity vehicle dynamics for ground vehicles when they are controlled by players. When a VR-Engage player station takes control of (engages with) a vehicle in a VR-Forces scenario, the back-end simulation model automatically switches from the standard VR-Forces CGF movement system to one that relies on Vortex.

MAK has integrated Vortex with the MAK Earth terrain engine, so that Vortex models can run (within VR-Engage) on any of the many types of terrain that VR-Engage can load. As the vehicle drives around, the Vortex code requests information from VR-Engage (through API calls) about the terrain geometry around the vehicle. VR-Engage adds that geometry to the Vortex world in the same way regardless of whether the terrain was loaded from an OpenFlight or FBX database, a CDB repository, or whether it’s procedurally generated from source data on VR-TheWorld Server. VR-Engage listens for changes to the terrain that are published by the VR-Forces dynamic terrain server (including craters, ditches, berms, tank scrapes, and damaged 3D models) and reflects them in the Vortex world, so that the vehicle can interact properly with changing terrain geometry. VR-Engage entities can collide with full bi-directional physics when the entities are simulated in on the same VR-Forces simulation engine.

Different entity types can be configured through VR-Engage’s role definition files to use different Vortex dynamics models (called "mechanisms"). VR-Engage includes a limited number of unique Vortex mechanisms to represent the basic types of vehicles (civilian car, truck, tank, IFV, and so on). Various specific vehicle types in the default SMS (VR-Engage.sms) are configured to use whichever of those generic mechanisms is the closest match. This is often sufficient for applications that use VR-Engage as a role player station. If you are using VR-Engage as the basis for a true driving trainer, this typically requires a vehicle-specific mechanism that accurately represents your vehicle's correct geometry and mechanical properties.

Editing or authoring custom Vortex mechanisms for use with VR-Engage requires the Vortex Studio editor ”Vortex Create”, which is a separate product that is available from CM Labs. And many projects choose to contract CM Labs experts to assist in developing or tuning their custom models.