I have been following lots of videos but I can’t quite get a set of tank tracks rigged. I’m looking for just simple control where the tracks move automatically based on the tank moving - no physics or fancier stuff.
I followed the examples from this old thread - but my model seems to not quite work.
The model works while at the origin, but if you drive it away, then rotate - it’s like the rotation is then multiplied by the distance away from the origin (maybe I need to add that into the driver…)
This is weird, you file is behaving perfectly well for me. I can move the tank along Y axis, rotate it, move it along X axis, rotate it, etc. with no problems…
It even works if I use 3D cursor offset from the tank and rotate it, having taken off the transform locks of course, but your tracks go the wrong way at times. Perhaps you should make a little video showing the errors you get, what version of Blender did you use, and on what OS. I use 2.79 on MacOS High Sierra.
To go around a curve corner, you should use a Follow Path Con/ Curve Mod for the tank hull and then you move it simply in the target axis of the Curve Mod, or animate the Follow Path Con and the tracks behave themselves. I’ll try and dig out my old tank file some time for you, it’s on an old backup disk somewhere…
Hey - thanks so much for taking a look.
I’m using 2.79 on Mac Sierra
Here’s a quick video:
I rotate it at the origin first, then move back and forth showing that it’s working as expected, then I move it off to the side and rotate there - which shows the tracks going a bit crazy. The green/red objects are the track parents.
That would be great to try our your model!
I also tried reloading the factory settings - but get the same result…
After having played around with my own setup for some time today…
I have come to the conclusion that perhaps the problem is just simply in the animation…
not the Rigging…
that is… you must have enough key frames in your animation to really get the Tank Track Effect…
if you watch some videos of Tracked Vehicles there really is a different motion that gets engaged in order to move about in a Track as opposed to something with Wheels…
That is basically when moving strait… it’s just like a Wheeled Tank…
but once you go into a turn… that Track has to slow down (that is take extra keyframes to make that Rotation… or else you get sliding…
watch some Tracked Vehicles moving fast and you will note that if they try to turn fast… there is sliding going on…
So I think really throwing in more key frames and adjusting where the Hull should be in that inbetween frame is really the real solution here…
Thanks for looking! I do find it a common theme here where folks (myself included) spend a lot of time looking for the “do it for me” button. When really, to get top quality looking animation results (or any other type of good quality result), it eventually comes down to hard work and dedication. There are efficiencies and proper ways to do things - but no real shortcuts.
@clockmender - my favorite part about you AN response in the other thread was the line “here is the node tree I threw together”.
I think I will go home and work on some more tank tracks.
Thanks for the kind words, I am working on a system where you just animate the tracks and the system moves the tank hull. I will update the other thread once I have the first video cooked.
Cheers, Clock.
EDIT:
Added something to the othertank thread about the new system.
I’ll try and dig out my old tank file some time for you, it’s on an old backup disk somewhere…