Sidescroller/Platformer Vehicle rotation (opinions needed!)

[Shishka]

Hi, folks.

I'm currently working on a 2d-ish platformer with mouse-aim, similar to this one here.

While I have the player controller and pawn working the way I like, I also want to have a vehicle the player can climb into that operates under similar controls (with different pitch constraints). To put it simply: I want to make the vehicle turn instantly to face the screen position of the mouse for a platformer with a 2d camera.

What is the best way to go about this? I've been playing a bit with making a vehicle using the Scorpion's mesh, physics and animations, but I don't even know where to begin to tell it to rotate. The manta, on the other hand, seems to rotate the way I'd like it to, but I can't figure out why it does this. Is this something only a hovering vehicle can do?

Lastly, it occurs to me that the physics simulation might be part of the problem. Or there might be issues with moving in one direction then instantly turning the vehicle around. If that's the case, does it make more sense to just make another pawn using the vehicle mesh and anims and "fake" a vehicle?

Thanks for your time.

[tegleg]

easiest way is to use a 'fake' vehicle based on a normal pawn, then you dont get the vehicle physics trying to send it off course.

[Shishka]

easiest way is to use a 'fake' vehicle based on a normal pawn, then you dont get the vehicle physics trying to send it off course.

That's what I suspected! Thanks!

[Shishka]

Okay, next question. Does SkelControlWheel animation only work with physics-simulating vehicle classes? For placeholder, I'm currently using the Scorpion's skeletal mesh as my vehicle pawn, and I'd like to get the wheels rotating. I can see in UTVehicle_Scorpion.uc that the SkelControlWheel's are all counted in the PostInitAnimTree and filed into an array, but I don't see where they're told to rotate with acceleration. I checked SVehicle.uc and Vehicle.uc as well and didn't see anything that caused the wheels to rotate in those classes, either.