I’m trying to make tank tracks. Each track plate has the same pattern and holes in them.
I also made a curve as the track shape
So I applied the array modifier and the curve modifier.
All is well for my tank tracks EXCEPT at the bending points. At the point where the curve bends, the track plate gets distorted (i guess the modifier is trying to “bend” the plate to fit the curve) with odd geometry starts appearing
how do I make it such that the plates have a strictly fixed shape?
ok, i got the track set up, how can i hide all the unnecessary things (the plane, the curve, and the sample track segment)?
since i intend on modifying it later, I do not wish to apply the modifiers yet…
(sorry for the late reply)
After trail and error i finally managed to make one that works right.
It’s Origin still needs to be tweaked a bit so the links line up correctly on sharper paths.
It was actually much harder to figure out that you need to do most of the things in edit mode otherwise the track acts weird.
Track right.blend (550 KB)
@wongrufus: neither BI nor Cycles render helper objects. You can move all related to tracks objects to another layer while modeling the rest.
Thanks,i learned quite a bit from the fixed version you uploaded 
Also i found out if you model the thread and link separately and give each of them a separate plane that has the curve mod on then the track acts allot more natural and it handles sharp corners on the curve better.
Currently trying to figure out how to make the tracks adapt to terrain without any deform.
how do i change the spacing between track segments? since i don’t have the array modifier to tweak with anymore
There is this plane which is set to duplicate segments: if that is scaled on appropriate axis in edit mode, distance between segments is scaled also. You might want to adjust Array Count for the Plane (make Array for it, if it’s not here).
@DCBloodHound: i believe it had something to do with Hooks: Ctrl-H with curve point can add Empty to that point which is attached to the armature bones later.
I finally got around to doing a tutorial on this…
Just wanted to bump this thread as I moved my tutorial video from YouTube to Vimeo…
also appoligies in advance I have been snowed under for the past 6 months with drafting work that has finally gotten finished…
Now I can come back here and do the important stuff like messing with blender and making some animations!!!
See post #11 for the updated link…
offtopic @Norvman:
May I ask why you moved to Vimeo for your tutorials? I ask because I don’t like to sit through video tutorials anyway but on Vimeo they are just intolerable because you can’t speed playback up to 1.5 or 2 which you can do on YT.
May I ask why you moved to Vimeo for your tutorials?
Because YouTube screwed up my Site…
you can’t speed playback up
yes but it’s way easier to Download the video and then watching anyway you like from your own computer…
@JuhaW Thanks! Great work!.. I wonder if your script could be extended to help solve the Mechanical Difficulty of having a Double link in the chain… such as in a Bicycle chain or as in this link here…
read through the thread and you will see what I’m talking about…
anyway that would be cool to have a script that would help simplify the whole double link process…
Plus… the tutorials also cover much one must do to make tank tracks work for the animator such as properly Parenting tracks to Hulls and linking drivers to boggie wheels and all that…
but your .py script definately helps… keep up the goog work and thanks a million!
@JuhaW after testing out your script…
this seems a great way to ‘create’ an array around a curve using a script…
but…
it kills your ability to animate using follow path it seems…
