Here is the path method.
There are obvious problems though.
Attachments
Path Curve.blend (438 KB)
Slightly related but you might also want to take a look here:
http://download.blender.org/document…%20tracks.html
I have studied this a bit but lost track of it after I started playing with the Array and curv modifier to do it…
but I’m not very familure with blender before 2.5 so the different interface makes it hard for me to grasp all he is talking about in that article… I was messing with XSI back then…
also in your file … I’m not quite getting how your animating this… you have the tank links parented to the path via dupliframes… but then what happens to get them to animate… ?
also… can anyone try adding a driver to the “Path Evaluation Time” button… when I do this… I can’t get the ‘Drivers tools’ to come up in the Drivers work area…
Try this… take your path… goto Properties > Curve Object Data (Curv Icon) > Path Animation > Right Click on Evaluation Time > Pick “Add Driver”… button turns purple just as it should… > but now pull out a second view port… and switch it too “Graph Editor” > on the bottom tool bar change “F-curve Editor” to “Drivers” > hit the “N” key to open up the Right hand tool shelf… Note that there are no “Driver’s Tools” as you would expect if you did this on any other object…
Just wondering if everyone else gets the same result… or is just my particular system…
Also… if you will note that when you use the Follow Path Constraint on an object… you can cause the object to move around it’s path buy animating the Offset button in the constraint… (with the Follow Curve box checked)… that works great… but… but if you try to place a Driver on it … The Driver has no effect…
I Finally got some time to do some videos on how to address these Rigging issues…
take a look and see if they help with this… sorry i’ve taken so long in getting to this… but work has kept me away from blender for quite some time… (I hate AutoCADD!!!)
Thanks but i actually figured it out a few months ago with drivers.
Nonetheless,the tutorial was interesting 
Thanks but i actually figured it out a few months ago with drivers.
Can you elaborate some more on the driver method for this…
I’m very interested in learning all I can about Drivers at the moment to help with my Rigging skills…
When you have time there Bloodhound…
Thanks in advance
Poor wording on my part,drivers were only for movement rigging.Sorry.
My method is more or less the same as yours,i was still struggling with minor deformation though.
There is a CGCookie tut that i am looking forward to watching later today about tank treads:
PM me if you don’t have a CGCookie account and if you’re interested.
Thanks DC… unless the CGCookie tutorial has something really radically great about Tank Tread building… then I’m not really ready for a join… there are so many sources of informaation and sometimes just goofing around with stuff gets you the answer you were looking for without a whole lot of work without having to dish out any funds for anything… If I weren’t so cash poor right now I wouldn’t even blink about something like that but… that’s just not the case right now…
anywayz… I’m just kind of poking around for some more Rigging ideas and methods to use not just on Tank Treads but other stuff too…
This is why we have the forum here !
I was re beginning to play with tracks for some tanks ect
and found some things
did you check that with the OB parent curve method that you can also modify curve length by scaling point on the curve !
happy bl
did you check that with the OB parent curve method that you can also modify curve length by scaling point on the curve !
well if you check my vimeo site I have my tutorials on how I’m currently building tank tracks… I’ve got 11 videos… most are two part videos so cut that in about half for a complete tutorial…
but actually no I’m not sure what your saying RickyBlender
the Object (?) parent curve method… hummmm
modify the curve length by scaling points on the curve… okay… guess I would have to see it to understand it…
this method is like used to do it in 2.49 I guess!
shape parented to curve and adjust the length to the shape you need!
or scale ob to complete the length along the curve
ok not as precise as using array and curve like you did and it may deform if radius of curvature becomes too small!
sorry did not have time to see all 12 videos you did !
did you try to do some PDF may be!
have fun with tracks
salut
a bit related but does anyone know what happened to the old ’ PrintLen ’ button in blender (used to be an option in curves which gives you the curve length)
sorry did not have time to see all 12 videos you did !
did you try to do some PDF may be!
yes the video’s get kind of involved as I start by asuming that the person watching has never built a Tank Track Rigg before… so I accually discribe how to build several different types of Track Riggs… each getting more complex as the videos go on… so no sweat if you didn’t watch them all… probably better if you start with video 11 (only 11 Tank Track Tutorial vids so far) and then work your way backwards through them…
yes I should do some PDFs…
Video’s are just easier in a lot of ways to do however…
@DCBloodHound
wow… a print length button… that could come in handy…
Here is the addon:
/uploads/default/original/4X/f/2/c/f2c0654fc94912dab711dc9e6c12340a824faebf.zip
It was a pain to get it working,i’m not exactly very fond of reading instructions 
Thanks DC! looks like a cool plugin…
It is,unfortunately it doesn’t want to calculate the length of a mesh converted to a curve (have to measure total edge length before converting it to a curve)
yah but… can you not bounce back and forth … that is convert it back to a Mesh… measure it… then convert it back into a curve? …
or make a dublicate of it at any point and convert that to a Mesh and then measure it and throw the mesh away… ?
So not so bad… a little slow… a few more steps… but hey… it can be done right? where I was thinking it before there was no tool for that at all…
You could do that,what i found faster was to just convert it to a mesh and then measure it and then press ctrl+Z to undo it so it’s a curve again.
I posted a link earlier in this thread where the guy works out a way to figure out how long his curve has to be to fit his track.My curve for example is (In metric) 47.46 long,each one of my track pieces is 1.13 away in the Y direction from the previous track pieces origin.47.46 divided by 1.13 = 42 so that means i will have 42 track pieces exactly.
BTW for objects the measure tool is in the bottom of the N toolbar window.