I’m trying to model a track with a constant shallow bank angle on the long straight sides, then a smooth gradual transition to a steeper bank angle at the corner ends.
I’ve tried Modifiers like the Simple deform, Mesh deform, Curve modifier, Lattice, Twist and Hooks, but haven’t gotten anything close.
This 3ds Max tutorial is what I started from, but I’m not sure if all the steps and tools have exact equivalents in Blender. These are some shots of the shape from the video.
My problem is which Modifiers or other approach to use and how to use them for a smooth transition between the straights and corners with two different angles of banking.
Thank you. I’ll give that a try and see how it works. I started with a Bezier Circle, then used Dupliverts and made the duplicates real. Does the Tilt option have a falloff to gradually transition to the outside or would I manually put in different tilt values for each point?
Here is a quick result from using Tilt. I will need to manually adjust Tilt per point around the track and subdivide to add more control points. Also the Tilt twists the high banking below ground, so I’ll also have to move and adjust each segment unless I can constrain the tilt somehow or maybe I can adjust the origin of the track plane.
I’m also open to any other ideas that might make cleaner automatic transitions from two given bank angles at certain points along the track.
EDIT:
Here’s one more quick try with the road plane origin at the bottom edge. That worked to align the bottom edge and control the tilt rotation from the inner edge. Still more kinks to work out with subdivisions and finding the best number of control points and good tilt values for each segment.
See if this helps. Track is equal width around though. If you need it wider on turns some fiddling with proportional edit maybe, idk.
Imho all you need is 6 curve points; for 2 you adjust tilt and z position then. http://www.pasteall.org/blend/28744
Thanks so much for your help! That looks great. I’m going to look at it carefully.
EDIT: Ok. I think I understand most of your blend file now. The flat Plane is only for visualizing the track curve shape, right? And you manually translated Z and put Tilt values on the Bezier Circle points at both ends?
Did you make the final track with the LoopTools Loft as mentioned in the tutorial link?
Very helpful of you and a good education for me. Thank you.
Correct, both slope and endpoints. Planes then are used to Duplivert track profile - profile is Parented to planes and plane on Object panel is set to Duplicate from face.
Doing so track profile is not distorted anymore; at the same time you cant use ready made track face segments - these wouldnt connect. So i got edges dupliverted, copy them, make real, join and skin manually (you need 1/4 actually, not much of a work).
If i think again there could be another easier method…
Ah I see, thank you for explaining. I didn’t realize exactly how you skinned the segments from looking at the file, but now I know. That’s a great help. I really appreciate your time and effort taken to offer this solution and set me on the right path.
