Quick Start — Drive Your First Vehicle in Five Minutes

This is the fastest possible path from "RCC just imported" to "I'm driving a vehicle in my own scene." We're going to take an empty scene, add a Scene Manager, drop in a vehicle prefab, add a camera, add a UI, and press Play.

If you haven't installed RCC yet, do 02 — How to Install RCC first. This guide assumes the package is in your project and there are no compile errors.

Step 1 — Create a New Scene

In the menu bar, click File → New Scene. Pick the Basic (Built-in) template. Save the scene as MyFirstRCC.unity somewhere in your Assets/ folder.

You should now have an empty scene with just a Main Camera and a Directional Light. We're going to delete the default Main Camera in a moment because RCC provides its own camera.

Step 2 — Add a Ground Plane

Without a ground there's nothing to drive on. In the menu bar, click GameObject → 3D Object → Plane. A flat plane appears at the world origin. With the plane selected, in the Inspector set its Scale to (10, 1, 10) so it's big enough to drive on.

Optionally, give it a color: drag any material onto the plane. The "Default-Material" works fine for a first test.

Step 3 — Add the RCC Scene Manager

Every RCC scene needs an RCC_SceneManager. There are two ways to add it:

Easy way (recommended): In the menu bar, click Tools → BoneCracker Games → Realistic Car Controller → Create → Managers → Scene Manager. A GameObject called RCC_SceneManager appears in your Hierarchy.

Manual way: Create an empty GameObject (GameObject → Create Empty), name it RCC Scene Manager, and add the RCC_SceneManager component to it via the Inspector.

You don't need to configure anything on the Scene Manager — it auto-discovers vehicles and cameras at runtime.

Step 4 — Add a Vehicle

In the Project window, navigate to:

Assets/RealisticCarControllerV4/Prefabs/Vehicles/

Drag any prefab into the scene — let's use M3_E46_New.prefab. The car appears at world origin and falls onto the ground plane (give it a moment for the physics to settle).

Position it where you want the player to start. Set the Y position to about 0.5 so the wheels are above the ground; physics will settle it onto the surface during Play.

Step 5 — Tell RCC This Is the Player Vehicle

Select the car in the Hierarchy and look at its Inspector. At the top you'll see the RCC_CarControllerV4 component. There's no checkbox saying "Is Player" — instead, RCC handles this in code at runtime.

You have two options:

Option A — Tag the vehicle "Player": Click the Tag dropdown at the top of the Inspector and set it to Player. The Scene Manager auto-registers any vehicle tagged "Player" on startup.

Option B — Register manually via code: Create a tiny script that calls RCC.RegisterPlayerVehicle() on Start. Example:

using UnityEngine;

public class RegisterMyCar : MonoBehaviour {
    public RCC_CarControllerV4 carToControl;

    void Start() {
        RCC.RegisterPlayerVehicle(carToControl);
    }
}

Drop this script on any GameObject and assign your car to its carToControl field. Both options achieve the same thing — the car becomes the active player vehicle, accepts input, and gets the dashboard UI bound to it.

For this guide, use Option A (tag = Player). Simpler.

Step 6 — Add the RCC Camera

In the menu bar, click Tools → BoneCracker Games → Realistic Car Controller → Create → Cameras → Add RCC Camera To Scene. An RCC Camera GameObject is added to the Hierarchy.

You can now safely delete the default Main Camera that was in the scene — RCC's camera replaces it. The RCC camera will follow whichever vehicle is registered as the player vehicle.

Step 7 — Add the Dashboard UI

In the Project window, find:

Assets/RealisticCarControllerV4/Prefabs/UI/RCC_Canvas.prefab

Drag it into the scene. This gives you a speedometer, RPM gauge, gear indicator, and other dashboard widgets in the bottom corner.

If you want full mobile UI (touch buttons, steering wheel, joystick), use RCC_Canvas (AIO).prefab instead.

Step 8 — Press Play

Click the Play button at the top of the editor.

You should see: - The car spawned, wheels settled on the plane, engine started (you'll hear it idling). - A speedometer in the bottom-right corner of the screen, reading 0 km/h. - The camera following the car from behind.

Press W (or up arrow) — the car accelerates forward. Press A / D to steer. Press S to brake. Press C to cycle camera modes (TPS → Hood → Wheel → Fixed → Cinematic → Top → back to TPS).

That's it. You have a working RCC scene.

Going Further

Now that you have a working baseline, here are the most common next steps:

Try a Different Vehicle

Delete your current car and drag in another prefab from Prefabs/Vehicles/. Tag it Player. Press Play. Each prefab has different mass, engine torque, and gear ratios, so they feel quite different.

Switch the Driving Behavior

The same vehicle drives very differently depending on which behavior preset is active. In any script, call:

RCC.SetBehavior(0); // 0 = Simulator
RCC.SetBehavior(1); // 1 = Drift
RCC.SetBehavior(2); // 2 = Arcade

Or change the default by opening Assets/RealisticCarControllerV4/Resources/RCC Assets/RCC_Settings.asset and changing the Behavior Selected Index field at the top. See 10 — Behavior Presets.

Add a Better Environment

The plane is fine for testing, but for a real test drive you want walls, ramps, and turns. Open one of the demo city scenes, copy the city environment prefab, and paste it into your scene. The included city has appropriate physic materials so ground detection works automatically.

Add an AI Opponent

In the menu bar, click Tools → BoneCracker Games → Realistic Car Controller → Create → Add AI Waypoints Container To Scene. Drop waypoint markers in a loop around your test environment. Then drag in Prefabs/Vehicles/Skyline (AI Chaser).prefab, expand its inspector, assign your waypoints container to the Target Container field, and press Play. The AI will follow your waypoints.

See 19 — AI System for the full setup.

Spawn Vehicles at Runtime

For a car selection menu or any "spawn cars from code" gameplay, use the RCC static API:

using UnityEngine;

public class SpawnCarOnPress : MonoBehaviour {
    public RCC_CarControllerV4 vehiclePrefab;
    public Transform spawnPoint;

    void Update() {
        if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.B)) {
            RCC.SpawnRCC(vehiclePrefab,
                         spawnPoint.position,
                         spawnPoint.rotation,
                         registerAsPlayerVehicle: true,
                         isControllable: true,
                         isEngineRunning: true);
        }
    }
}

(This snippet uses Input.GetKeyDown from the old Input class for brevity. Once you're past quick prototyping you'll want to switch to the Input System — see 16 — Input System.)

Make Your Own Vehicle

If you have your own 3D car model, you can turn it into an RCC vehicle with the setup wizard. See 07 — Creating New Vehicles.

What If Nothing Works?

"The car spawned but I can't drive it"

Most likely the vehicle isn't registered as the player. Make sure you tagged it Player, OR that the Scene Manager exists in the scene, OR that a script is calling RCC.RegisterPlayerVehicle().

Also check the Console (Window → General → Console) for errors. Any compile error blocks Play mode from running the way you'd expect.

"I can hear the engine but the car isn't visible"

Your camera is probably at world origin and the car spawned somewhere else (or vice versa). Click the car in the Hierarchy, then press F in the Scene view to frame it. Move your camera or your car so they share approximately the same area, then press Play again.

"The car falls through the floor"

Your ground plane has no collider, or its collider was disabled. Click the plane and confirm it has a Mesh Collider (or Box Collider) component active in the Inspector.

"The wheels are inside out / pointing wrong"

The wheel transforms aren't aligned to the conventional axis. For the included demo prefabs this won't happen — but if it does, open the menu Tools → BoneCracker Games → Realistic Car Controller → Check Axis Orientation and follow the prompts.

Anything Else

See 28 — Troubleshooting for a long list of common issues. If you're still stuck, contact support at bonecrackergames@gmail.com with a screenshot of the Console and a description of what you did.

Next Steps

You have a working vehicle in your own scene. From here, you can read 06 — How the System Works to understand the architecture before going deeper, or jump to whatever topic you need from the Table of Contents.