Real-time vehicle control and deformation prototype built on top of Jolt (Godot) WIP

[Stellarica-Interactive]

Hi Jorrit,

I wanted to share a short video of a project I’ve been working on, built on top of Jolt Physics using Godot.

The prototype focuses on real-time vehicle damage and deformation. All deformation is computed at runtime. There are no pre-baked animations, mesh swaps, or scripted damage states. The system is designed to remain stable under repeated impacts and lightweight enough to run well on older mobile hardware (tested on an iPad 6th gen).

The video shows:
• Head-on and angled wall impacts
• Vehicle-to-vehicle collisions (including T-bones)
• Repeated impacts demonstrating deformation persistence
• Collisions against different masses and rigid obstacles
• Some slow-motion sections to better visualize force response

The goal was mainly to demonstrate variety and physical correctness.

Jolt has been great to work with here, especially in terms of determinism, stability under stress, and predictable performance. Most of the complexity lives in a custom deformation layer on top, along with a custom car controller.

This is still experimental, but I thought it might be interesting to share a real-world use case of Jolt in a physics-heavy scenario.

Video:
https://youtu.be/5Msbd0XtCsg

Thanks for all the work you’ve put into Jolt, it’s been a pleasure to build on.

Best,
Gábor

[jrouwe]

This looks very cool! You should do a writeup on how it works!

Did you post this somewhere on x/bsky/mastodon where I can retweet/toot etc. it?

[Stellarica-Interactive]

Thanks a lot, really appreciate that!

A write-up is definitely on my list, I’d like to do a proper technical breakdown once things stabilize a bit, especially around the deformation layer.

I just posted it on X here if you’d like to share it:
https://x.com/Stellarica_io/status/2014106358879003097

And bsky as well:
https://bsky.app/profile/stellarica-io.bsky.social/post/3mcxzbo5lqk2y

[Stellarica-Interactive]

@jrouwe in addition to the previous comment, I also created a Mastodon account&posted:
https://mastodon.social/@stellarica/115939973146490878

[jrouwe]

I reposted them (except for the mastodon because for some reason I cannot see the post from my account at mastodon.gamedev.place)

[Stellarica-Interactive]

Thanks a lot for sharing, really appreciate it. Glad you found it interesting and thanks again for all the work on Jolt.