ev¹ Vehicle Rig

The problem

The front wheels of ev¹ are driven by their own motors and steer independently of the rear wheels. From the beginning, the studios we commissioned for product films could not simulate that behaviour. The wheels slid instead of steering, so every render video showed the vehicle moving in a way it does not actually move.

Coming from an engineering background, I could see the motion was governed by known kinematics rather than by anything unpredictable, which meant it should be possible to model properly rather than approximated away.

What I built

I taught myself enough Blender and Unreal Engine 5 to build the rig, aiming for a drivable ev¹ whose movement follows the real steering behaviour, so the same setup could be reused for any future product film.

Result

The finished rig is driven by the vehicle’s actual steering kinematics rather than an approximation, so the wheels track correctly through turns instead of sliding.

This project was built in my own time and shown to the design team. It was not yet in production use when I left.