Moving a car round a sphere (following spline) problem

[stevesideas]

Hi there. I'm working on an animation where a basic car model follows a spline drawn onto a sphere. I'm currently using the path constraint to get the car to follow but it banks and does not stay perpendicular to the surface of the sphere. If I use the path modifier the mesh stays perpendicular but becomes warped to the spline curve.

Is there any other way to do this ?

[YoyoBoy]

Use a look-at controller that points to a dummy at the center of the sphere.

[stevesideas]

Yep, I actually tried something like this. I created a sphere, attached the car to it and then had the sphere look at a null that followed the path.

The only problem I have with either of these methods is that the spline isn't a straight spline around the sphere...it is a drawn path and curves in a number of places which means that turning to follow the path will not work.

[YoyoBoy]

Maybe.... z-axis looking at sphere center and y-axis looking at dummy following the path just ahead of the car?

[stevesideas]

Yes, that might work. Thanks. I'll give that a go