CGTalk - How to animate a tank tread?

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Madpear

06-30-2003, 01:22 PM

I made a tank, and i'd like to animate it's treads.
What's the best way to do this?
I tried several tutorials seen on the net: make a nurbs circle and put the tread on it, then deform the circle with a lattice to match the shape of my tread, but some cliping occurs.
It would be simple if the tank had a constant speed, but it accelerate and later move slower. The treads musn't slide on the ground.
Please help me ..... fast ;)

webster

06-30-2003, 01:27 PM

search this forum,
look on Highend3d.com

Madpear

06-30-2003, 01:48 PM

Yes, i used the mel found on highend3d to make my tread, but it's impossible to animate the tread using this mel, or the speed must be constant otherwise, there a big bug.

Kabab

06-30-2003, 03:01 PM

There are heaps of plugs in on highend 3d or you can do it the hard way.

Draw you spline in the shape of the tank wheel and then model an individual tread.

Make enough duplicates of it so they will reach around the spline.

Now attach them to motion path for each tread offset the start and end times ( you will need to play around with this for the correct spacing)

Now go into the graph editor with all the treads select and set the in and out to to infinity.

Your done..

PS if you don't know mel this is a great project to use to teach yourself mel.

pyromania

06-30-2003, 03:05 PM

There was a thread about this

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8885&highlight=tank

also check out

http://www.noir.org/tutorials/Xen%20Wildman/treadtut/treadtut.html

Madpear

06-30-2003, 03:53 PM

Thanks for the firts link pyromania (I knew the 2nd one) :thumbsup:

Nicool

06-30-2003, 05:00 PM

X-tender (one of my tender firend from cgtalk :scream: ) coded a script which done it by one click :

www.fuchtelworld.de

:beer:

Madpear

07-01-2003, 09:39 AM

Nicool, the script you're talking about has also a bug. Animate the tread. Then, in the graph editor, add point to increase and decrease the speed of the tread. You'll notice that, when you decrease the speed, the tread turn in the opposite way .... :thumbsdow

thematt

07-01-2003, 10:24 AM

ok here is what I used to do when i had to do that..it's a hack but it works..
First draw the curve you need for the tread..
then ccreate a lot's of bones as mush as you need (the more the more presise of course)..create an Ik spline and skin or parent the tread to your bones..now you can annimate the offset of the Ik spline so you bones will move around the spline.

Problem encounter is that it turns around only once with the offset so you have to come back to the offset "0" everytime you've finish a rotation and keyframe again...hummm

anyway on the bonus tool that you can download on highend there's a tool call bones on curve that just does eveything I said in on click..then you just have to animate isn't that cool !!

:p

ok hope it helps

Cheers

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