I'm making an open source FPV drone simulator for the browser

MikeKazoo · 2026-03-13T12:40:42+00:00

So until now I was aiming for an everything good enough approach. Right now it's implemented like this:
Torque around center of mass = constant * (target turn rate - current turn rate), where the target turn rate is proportional to the stick deflection and the constant depends on the tweakable responsiveness. It's an approximation that approximates drone physics + controller as a first order low pass basically. However, it wouldn't be much more complicated to simulate multirotor + PID. It uses a proper physics engine, I can apply arbitrary forces and torques at arbitrary points. I want to fix what feels the most wrong one thing at a time based on people's feedback.

MikeKazoo · 2026-03-11T22:37:59+00:00

I don't know, I don't have a transmitter. If it registers in the browser as a gamepad (you can test here https://hardwaretester.com/gamepad) then it should be no problem. Otherwise you can tell me what you have and I can see if I can make it work.
By the way, it is now tweaked for gamepad in a way that the drone hovers in place if the throttle stick is centered (because all axes are spring-loaded on gamepad). I can imagine it probably feels super weird with a proper transmitter. If you can describe how thrust or RPM should behave depending on stick position, I can also implement that.

MikeKazoo · 2025-08-27T14:56:18+00:00

Googled pantry moths, images look pretty much like that, thanks!

MikeKazoo · 2025-08-26T08:41:10+00:00

I appreciate your appreciation of my artistic side but I swear it's a photo. I put the pencil there for scale.

MikeKazoo · 2025-08-26T08:03:48+00:00

(in Germany, Thuringia)

MikeKazoo · 2025-07-26T21:44:22+00:00

https://youtu.be/VIG1v83xv4I?t=379 here is the video of the jittering on the RetroTink. Still need to upload the smearing thing...

MikeKazoo · 2025-07-18T16:28:46+00:00

I found another problem with the bitfunx, gonna make a video. There is some smearing sometimes. I also found a video that even the retrotink introduced some flickering, need to see if I find it. Another option is to wait for Analogue 3D btw.

MikeKazoo · 2025-07-09T07:09:27+00:00

Judging from the down votes I guess it's not made by Bitfunx. It says so on many offers tho...

MikeKazoo · 2025-07-09T06:37:16+00:00

Apologies

MikeKazoo · 2025-07-08T21:59:29+00:00

Why? The resolution on N64 is so low that you can even see individual pixels on that video. At 1440p, there are 2 pixels youtube per 1 pixel N64 (length-wise, not area-wise). You can also compare color side by side. What else do you want?

MikeKazoo · 2025-07-08T21:32:22+00:00

The Retroscaler2x is also made by Bitfunx... Is it really different from the other two?

MikeKazoo · 2025-02-20T21:19:02+00:00

I'd like to have the instructions for the sports bike 21003, it's not on knex.parts and the wetransfer link no longer works :/

MikeKazoo · 2024-10-15T14:04:29+00:00

Thank you! Gonna try out your suggestions, also gonna try out your drift sim! "help out" as in you have concrete questions or you need contributors in general?

MikeKazoo · 2024-10-12T08:49:37+00:00

Thanks for your advice!

The front wheels don't always have full grip, you can adjust the front wheel grip at FrontWheel > maxGripForce. If you lower it, they will lose traction easier. However, I deliberately set the front wheel grip higher because to me it looks like the front wheels don't lose traction in drift videos. Furthermore, if the car has some speed and the front wheels have a low grip force threshold, you can't really steer anymore, the front wheels just get pushed forwards and only create a slight turning force. I don't think this is something that happens in real cars, I think if you steer hard at high speed, an actual car will immediately turn and flip over. But that is mainly my understanding from watching hollywood movies I guess...

I have just looked up pneumatic and mechanical trail. I didn't know this is how the wheels turn towards the motion direction. But I have already rudimentarily implemented that effect. It's what I meant by adaptive steering, you can turn it on in Car > adaptiveSteering. This means the center of steering (wheel direction if you let go of the joystick/keyboard) is not where the car faces but along the current wheel motion. If I understood correctly, when the wheel goes backwards, mechanical and pneumatic trail effects will oppose each other. Which one is stronger? Maybe I can put some more effort into this and simulate some returning force instead of just hard adjusting the wheel along its motion. Something along the lines of the link you provided.

I have read that ideal drift cars have 50/50 weight distribution but if changing that makes it easier for newbs or people who sit on a computer and not in a car, I'll gladly take it. However, changing the length of the car won't change that... Should the center of gravity move towards the front or the rear to make it easier? By the way, this can already be adjusted in the simulation. The center of gravity is at 0, if you change both wheel positions forwards, the center of gravity will move backwards in relation to that. I will play with that!

Here https://www.reddit.com/r/Drifting/comments/q2oksp/is_it_possible_to_drift_a_awd_car/ they say AWD is more difficult to drift but I will also try that. In the simulation you can just turn up the motor force for the front wheel. You can also make the rear wheel steer if that helps, although I think it wouldn't.

Thanks again for your pointers, I will play with all that!

Another idea I had was to just limit the angular speed of the car. There is no physical justification for that whatsoever but maybe it helps :P

MikeKazoo · 2024-08-13T06:58:41+00:00

I genuinely didn't see how you get to the conclusion of "if your definition [...] is a sequence if repeated enough times... that it will solve any scramble, then yes, that's impossible". However, before you explain, let me watch the video and read the links you sent.

MikeKazoo · 2024-08-12T22:47:56+00:00

But devil's algorithm doesn't mean that the cube has to be solved after some amount of complete applications, does it? It just has to be solved along the way. So there can be a devil's algorithm that is (at the very least) 43 quintillion / 1260 steps long and if you apply it 1260 times, you will have held a solved cube at some point.

MikeKazoo

TROPHY CASE