Front Suspension
After a lot of reading and some maths and creating a few test rigs I have decided that changing the front steering and suspension setup to centre hub steering is the way to go and would actually work in the real world nicely.
Centre hub steering has the pivot points inside the hub of the wheel instead of at the head stock. This actually helps a lot under heavy breaking and is used in some production bikes. It also means I can move to a more car like steering setup which fits the profile of the bike nicely.
Using multiple references from real world bikes, I settled on this, initially I just blocked this out with primitives but here I’ve started adding more detail. I’m parenting everything to the rig as I model and have set extreme poses for the rig. I’m continually checking as I model to make sure I’m not introducing clearance issues etc.
Modelling so it’s mechanically viable forces design choices on you (like how to setup the sub frame etc.) that add to the overall realistic look of the final model. Even though you are not going to see a lot of these components having them there make you get everything in the correct place (and for the final animation I’m planning to do a cutaway of it all working so what that detail.
