Hi,
I used the old path+frames method to model tank tracks so they don’t deform but they are rotating weirdly.
Here is the .Blend file.
Attachments
tracked.blend (1.96 MB)
No one?
Is it really that hard to fix?
I have a series on Rigging tank tracks here is my latest addition to that series addressing non deforming tank links…
Cool,i will take a look when i get home.Sound doesn’t work at work.
I see you didn’t make a track piece with complicated links and i couldn’t get a close view of the track.
Take a look here,see if you can fix it without decreasing the size of the tank tracks or increasing the number of track pieces.
I’m still trying to make a good track that works correctly.
The only solution i have so far is placing empties along the track and parenting track pieces to each one,empties are then put at the rotating points and constraints are lastly added so they stay in place.
Attachments
Tankasta.blend (533 KB)
sorry i cannot get the last file
does not download !
will look a the video tut
thanks
Yep,sorry for the late reply.
Been working on this for several days… not coming up with anything yet… just to let you know where I’m at on it… this is an interesting problem… Blender’s method of using Constraints and modifiers seems to Figure Modifiers after constraints… witch keeps me from making this work the way I would like to see it work… I wonder if there is a way to change the Stack order of Modifiers and Constraints… if there is I think this problem could be fixed… but so far I have to admit I’m stumped for the moment…
i know that the constraints are executed from top to bottom
not certain about the modifiers!
happy bl
@ RickyBlender Hey Rick… Try this to see what I mean… take the default cube… and copy it… move cube.001 out away in any direction… put a copy location constraint on it picking the origonal cube as it’s target…
now add a Curv Circle… Scale it up a bit in edit mode…
now pick the original cube and add a Curv modifier… pick the BezierCircle as the target…
Notice how the Location Constraint does not take into concideration the Modifier that is now placed on the Cube object… that Cube.001 is tied to the original location of ‘Cube’ and not it’s modified position…
I’m just wondering if there is not a way for the Constraint Stack to take into account the Modfier Stack before the Constrant Stack does it’s thing…
constraints definition
constraints are a way of connecting transform properties (position, rotation and scale) between objects. Constraints are in a way the object counterpart of the modifiers, which work on the object data (i.e. meshes, curves, etc.).All constraints share a basic common interface, again with many similarities with the modifiers’ one.
There are several types of constraints. We can classify them into four families:
- Transform
- Tracking
- Relationship
- Motion Tracking
Modifiers work by changing how an object is displayed and rendered, but not the actual object geometry
salut
I’m actually wondering if this could be possible with a script.
Also i’m not sure if this is relevant but if you switch out the track with an empty it will duplicate the empty along the curve (one the faces of the plane as well as any objects that are parented to the empty.
@RickyBlender ,you might wanna check what you post.The links are broken.
Attachments
Empty track.blend (489 KB)
@DCBloodHound
can you elaborate a little
what do you mean by switch out the track with an empty
thanks
It means the usual track is switched out with an empty,the track is then parented to the empty.
It’s not a solution but it is interesting.
btw check the .blend file to get what i mean.
Modifiers work by changing how an object is displayed and rendered, but not the actual object geometry
I understand what your saying here however note that once you “apply” the modifier then all of a sudden it’s not just a ‘display’ modifier anymore… also I’m wondering if there is not a way to get maybe more control out of duplifaces… (which is kind of like a modifier)…
That is to say I would almost have what I wanted if I could say combine and Array and or curv modifier to duplifaced objects such that each object could be manipulated on a more individual basis… as it is now… if you change the the orginal object being used as a dupliface then they all change… which is cool in and of it’s self… but… say like I have a flock of birds… duplifaces works great… to help simlulate a hundred birds in a flock… but if I want to have slight variations of each bird… or even just every 5th bird flaps it’s wing different than the rest to make the whole flock look more realistic…
I’m just wondering if someone has done this in blender before… perhaps I’m trying to use the wrong tools to acomplish this… (that is to say tools within blender)
Also i’m not sure if this is relevant but if you switch out the track with an empty it will duplicate the empty along the curve (one the faces of the plane as well as any objects that are parented to the empty.
Yah… This has some interesting possibilities… what I’m trying to do is get the track to where I can simulate the rotation points and use a track to constraint to point at the next rotation point… but as it stands… the software using modifiers and constaints won’t (seemingly) let me do that as Constraints are figured first in the stack and then modifiers…which means… that no matter what kind of constraint I put on the tank links… they will only effect the geometery in the non-modified mode… (at least from what I have experimented around with so far)
see my file here…
RobotTrackTest_6Six_027.blend (1020 KB)
So the crux of the issue is finding a way to get the links to attach them selves to two different rotation points… or one rotation point… and then a track too target… if you can do that on every tank link then you have a tank track that will not deform with the curv modifier…
but remember that when you use curve modifier
it will deform objects it’s the nature of the beast!
so you better use the path method then that at least wont deform ob
happy bl
so you better use the path method then that at least wont deform ob
Really? I was thinking that curve modifier and path constraint pretty much did the same thing…
This may be what I’m looking for thanks for the heads up RB…
Paths also deform,they are just easier to work with then curves and they have an additional function called path follow.
I haven’t used it in a long time so i can’t show you an example (another reason being that my work PC is so old it can’t even open blender)
Slightly related but you might also want to take a look here:
http://download.blender.org/documentation/oldsite/oldsite.blender3d.org/166_Blender%20tutorial%20Tank%20tracks.html