I'm trying to create a dynamic simulation of a simplified vehicle with wheels.
I'm using Hinged constraints to connect spinning wheels to the body, and that works fine, but now can't quite figure out how to actually implement steering on the front wheel.
That is, I'm using a hinge contraint along x for the primary rotation of the wheel but then need to be able to swivel that same wheel about a constant up (y) axis for the steering right and left.

I've played around with various goal configurations but I'm stumped.
It seems like it's got to be a pretty simple system to set up…right?

I've attached a simple Houdini file with my ‘motorcycle’.
Ideally there's one spare channel for steering direction and the solver takes care of the rest.

Any help is appreciated!
File is H9 Apprentice.

Wow, no takers?
Okay, I'll simplify the problem: How do I make a caster in DOPs? That is, it can rotate like a wheel but then also around that vertical axis that shoves into the chair.

Seems so do-able….in theory…

If this were another software I'd suggest locking the wheel to only allow rotation in one axis, and then parent to a null that would be locked to only allow ‘y’ axis rotation for the swivel.

Fairly new to Houdini so I'm not sure if that's the approach to use here.

Hi Kurt.
Yeah, I tried something kind of like that.
I tried creating a goal for the rotate-constrained wheel (using two pin constraints) to another object that would be constrained to only rotate around y and then goaled to the main body.
When I tried that the whole body of the ‘machine’ stopped obeying the groundplane and just sunk into it. Something off about the constraints.
Unfortunately, I think there are subtler things going on with constraints and how they operate in Houdini than I understand right now.