Train Rig

#1

Has anyone came up with a rig for a train system that allows for individual cars of the train to be adjusted but still flow the path of a track.

I’ve seen William Vaughn 24 hr “roller coaster” tutorial but it seems locked to the morphing.

#2

This doesn’t help much right now, but I can think of a couple of ways to achive what you want. It would require some technical rigging and preparations with carefull measurements etc.

It is a good and fun challenge to come up with a solid solution. I’ll see what I can do, but don’t sit and wait for me (or someone else) to come up with a solution for you.

:slight_smile:

#3

I finaly got to sit down and do some testing…

http://hangar18.gotdns.org/~cageman/trainRig/trainRig_clothDynamics.m4v

Individual control of the carts (as in, you can add a bone and have each cart have different “dynamics” to them) as well as wheels.

Oh well… I will tinker some more on this and make some suggestions to NT as well for future versions of LW.

:slight_smile:

#4

Okay I am intrigued.
How did you set it up?

#5

The way I would set up a fully controllable rig for a train would be to start with the morphing technique I use in that video to get the first pass of motion. Then I would use the make path option so that I could get individual nulls with the proper motion for each section of the train. Then you can setup a hierarchy for the different components that can all be hand keyed to your liking.

This would give you an easy way to setup the motion to follow the tracks while still giving you the freedom of secondary motion on the individual components.

#6

True… however, each step you perform requires a “freezing” process, meaning that as soon as you need to change the curve, you are back at square one.

The technique I use with node item motion makes the whole rig much more adaptable to changes without the need to bake anything. In the case of the demo I made, I used clothFX, but if you use particles, you don’t need to calculate, which means that you can dynamicly change the path and everything will respect the changes. :slight_smile:

#7

Particles controlls the various parts of the train as far as steering goes, while the particles motion is controlled by wind animation path.

No baking nor calculation needed… the only issue I have with this solution is that, for some reason, the initial “gap” between the carts are not keept througout the animation. That is why I think the clothFX method is better and while not as flexible (as in needing a recalc when changing the path), the clothFX method is also free from the need of baking, and thus, is much more flexible in the long run, I think.

Here is a short demo showing why Particles + Wind animation path is so extremely flexible. :smiley:

http://hangar18.gotdns.org/~cageman/trainRig/particlebased_rig.mp4

:slight_smile:

#8

Good job mister Cageman!!

#9

much more elegant… but elegance was never my technique :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ll have to give your setup a go when I can… sounds like a smart pipeline.

#10

Hey Cageman, dont hesitate to make a tutorial out of it, even without sound. Just redo the scene from scratch while recording it with a screen capture app and upload to youtube of vimeo!!

I would really like to see that

#11

Cageman- I realize it’s not the main point, but I really liked the camera movement you setup in the cloth version. :thumbsup:

Would also appreciate some details on your setup. :slight_smile:

#12

Hi guys,

I just wanted to let you guys know that I am looking into a third solution that might work out even better without the use of dynamics (as in no calculations) but still with the same flexibility as what you guys saw with the particle solution. I’m not sure this solution will work out just yet though.

And, yes… all of this will of course become a neat and dandy videotutorial, free of charge, and hopefully also with the content provided.

I hope to be able to showcase all three methods, which all actually needs the same type of preparations in Modeler, and are based on the same principle; animate/simulate a 2-point polychain, and the rig, once setup, will do all the work for you.

:slight_smile:

Oh, and yes… I will not forget to mention how the camera is done. :smiley:

#13

What a sweet surprise…looking forward to it very much!

#14

GO Cageman!

#15

Cool… thanks for this Cageman! Looking forward to another superb tutorial vid. Where do you find the time? :smiley:

#16

Sounds great! Looking forward to it.

Cheers!

#17

That is looking pretty damn sweet. Love the camera work too there buddy.

#18

Thanks! :slight_smile:

Things are progressing regarding methology to make things work on my end as well… I think, within a couple of days I can start recording a tutorial. It depens though, how I spend the rest of my vaccation. :wink: I’ve gotten into a quite nice metal-music writing mood at this point as well, so… I have to hammer on the drums and bother the strings on my guitar.

:smiley:

#19

Yes! Bryphi again… He will most likely beat me to it. :slight_smile: And his approach made me go like…wtf, can LW do that? Really, really cool. :slight_smile:

   He has taken care of the tracks/railroad in the first video. The second (which has not been released yet) will deal with getting the train on there.
   
   Check it out!
   
   [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48WyVJP_8sI&feature=digest_wed](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48WyVJP_8sI&feature=digest_wed)
#20

Nice, thanks for the link. :wink: