Automating Vehicle Tilt in Curves with 3ds Max

Published on January 05, 2026 | Translated from Spanish
3D car tilting on a curve with an automatic rig system in 3ds Max, showing helpers and controls.

When Your Car Needs to Tilt Like a Pro 🏎️

Tired of manually animating every tilt in a curve? With this automatic setup, your vehicle will lean like an experienced driver, leaving you free to focus on what's important: making those drifts epic.

The Heart of the System: Detecting Curves

Create this intelligent core:

  1. Master Helper that follows the Path Constraint
  2. Curve Detection System based on:
    • Lateral acceleration
    • Changes in the spline's tangent
  3. Rotation Controller (Euler) to apply the tilt
A good car rig is like the perfect co-pilot: it anticipates every curve and adjusts the lean without you having to say a word.

Advanced Levels of Realism

To take your rig to the next level:

Life-Saving Tools

Optimize your workflow with:

Conclusion: Perfect Curves Without Effort 🏁

With this system, your car will go from moving like a shopping cart to leaning like a race car prototype. And the best part: you can pretend to be a vehicle physics expert without ever opening a mechanics book.

Now all that's left is to add a controller for sparks when drifting... but don't get too excited. 🔥