HOTW – Hands on the Wheel Mod WIP Beta 0.1.0 For quite some time, I’ve wanted to see a visible driver interacting with the steering wheel in BeamNG.drive, so I decided to give it a shot. This mod adds visible arms and hands interacting with the steering wheel, a mechanic that I’ve always felt was missing from BeamNG.drive, mainly because of how much it can improve immersion while driving. Download & Installation HOTW Beta 0.1.0 is available for free as a digital download on Buy Me a Coffee. DOWNLOAD HOTW – BETA 0.1.0 Close BeamNG.drive. Place the ZIP directly in the mods folder inside your active BeamNG.drive user folder. Do not extract the ZIP. Remove older HOTW ZIPs so only one version is active. Start the game and enter a vehicle. The mod is completely free. If you enjoy my work and would like to support future development, you can optionally buy me a coffee. Support is not required to download or use HOTW. Buy Me a Coffee is the only official download source. Please share the download page or this thread instead of re-uploading, mirroring, selling or bundling the mod elsewhere without my permission. Beta 0.1.0 Showcase Here’s a look at the current beta: Configuration & Compatibility Open Pause → Mods → HOTW Settings and enable Editing mode. Start in Body to position the driver and adjust the arm posture. Use Hands to adjust the position and angle of each hand independently. If you change Elbow bend, click Apply before Save. Use Save to keep your setup or Cancel to discard changes. Settings are saved per steering wheel. Vehicles using the same wheel share the setup. Defaults are included for selected wheels; others may need manual calibration. Compatibility depends on the vehicle and steering wheel. VR and multiplayer still need further validation. Development Status ● Implemented ● In Development / Improvement ● Possible Future Feature ● Visible driver hands and arms ● Steering animations ● Independent positioning and rotation adjustments for both hands ● In-game configuration with a live preview ● Driver positioning and elbow adjustments ● Saved settings per steering wheel ● Separate hand and arm visibility controls ● Default setups for more steering wheels ● Full-body implementation ● Gear shifting animations ● Skins and character color customization HOTW is still in beta. Future features may change as development continues. Known Issues & Bug Reports Motion Blur: BeamNG.drive’s motion blur may make the hands and arms look blurry while moving. Reduce or disable it in Options → Graphics if needed. HOTW shows a warning but does not change your graphics settings. If you encounter a problem, please report it in this thread with: Your BeamNG.drive version. The vehicle or mod name and steering wheel equipped. What happened and how to reproduce it. A screenshot or video, if possible. Earlier Development Previews Preview 1 – Day One The first working experiment, with limited steering movement. Preview 2 – Animation Implementation An early version of the steering animations, before the hand placement improvements. Preview 3 – IK & Steering Improvements Improved hand positioning and steering behavior. The arms were hidden in this preview while elbow positioning was being developed. Feedback & Suggestions I’d love to hear how the beta works with your vehicles and steering wheel setups. Bug reports, suggestions and feedback are welcome! Thank you to everyone who followed the development, watched the previews and helped test the mod. I’ll keep sharing progress here and on YouTube. Enjoy the beta! ❤️ Credits Kunos Simulazioni – Models and Animations (Assetto Corsa) zip_kiev – Beta Tester 1Matzh – BeamNG.drive Implementation and Mod Development HOTW is an unofficial fan project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the respective rights holders.
This is actually a really cool idea. Having visible arms and hands would add a lot to the first-person experience and make driving feel more immersive. I’m definitely interested to see how this turns out once you get it working properly.
Hi, im try work on gta style character system, and i want have two cameras(fps/tps) - can you say did you plan work on something more them hands? because why we need do the same I can easily cede this right to you.?) I plan release for free if final result will be playable. About mod, i like it, it looks good!! what im sugest is add L/R steer wheel support, handbrake and gear handle support, need also legs and body. PS i'm also have issue with MB when i put 3d mesh with bone in vehicle i think it is a engine problem... if find way how to fix pls share
Hey, I liked your project too,it looks really cool. As for my mod, the idea is for it to be exclusively first-person, so it wouldn't quite fit your project, my goal is to try and capture the same feel as playing Assetto Corsa. Regarding other mechanics, I do want to implement what you mentioned: gear-shifting and handbrake animations. The legs and body are interesting ideas too, maybe sometime in the future. Hand positioning is my priority right now. I should have a new update ready in a few days, and thanks for the suggestions!
New update on the mod's progress, featuring a video showing the use of IK for the hands. The next stage I'm currently working on is creating a settings menu for the mod, adjusting the hand settings for each steering wheel in the game, and fixing the arms.
Here's a new video for you guys, it now supports modded cars. The beta is coming for free, and the entire project will be available for free once it's released. Thank you all for your support, and there's much more to come.
Holy i was just playing Beamng and i was wanting to recreate no hesi as i have few mods that does that and then this was exactly what i was thinking of i needed as i wanted something with hands that actually arent just static and damn this is so sick cant wait to use this in game
I created an editor to position the hands individually using inverse kinematics. Once you set the initial pose, calculations are performed based on the steering wheel's position to keep the hands aligned with the steering wheel's rotation and reproduce the animation. You'll understand it better with the beta video I'm going to post today.
This works quite well, I'm impressed! I only wish I could change the color of the gloves. White is quite bright and shiny when sun is hitting the hands. Possibility to choose from even a few options would be awesome. Black and grey at least. And of course the motion blur problem and missing full body when viewing replays or 3rd person view. I'm going to buy you some more coffee if you can fix those as well. Thank you!
Thanks for the support. Well, let’s get to it. I have a lot of ideas ahead of me, and I’m just getting started. I talked to an Assetto Corsa modder who created driver models, and he gave me permission to use his models, which means there will be different “skins” in the future. As for changing the color, I’d never thought about that before; I’ll have to look into it and see what I can do, it’s a really interesting idea. The motion blur issue will have to wait until update 0.40, which adds that driver model to the cars, possibly using the same technique as the game, which might fix the problem. Right now, from what I can tell, what people are asking for most is the driver’s full body, so I’m going to focus on that. I also need to finish adjusting all the steering wheels in the game.
Hi, has anyone got this mod working on previous versions of BeamNG like 0.38? I'm using an older version because it's better for VR. I've installed the mod but can't seem to get it working, I can see it in the mod manager but won't let me click subscribe.
I talked to other users and tested it myself, the mod doesn't work in version 0.38. Mainly because it uses code that's only available starting in version 0.39. I even thought about fixing it, but version 0.40 is coming out soon, and I'll probably have to get it to work in that version. Yes, but my priority right now is to implement the full-body, and that takes time between implementing, testing, and fixing bugs.
Ok, that's a shame, your mod looks epic! I've heard they're adding DLSS for 0.40 so hopefully I'll be back on the latest version then.
