Trouble bending tread around wheel base.

Support Modeling
#1

I’ve done it at least a dozen times before elsewhere, but this is my maiden voyage doing so in Blender. And I can’t get it to work. :mad:

It’s a simple enough thing to do. Make your tire, make a part of your tread, use an array to duplicate it, put the origin in the center of the tire, and bend like a mofo, 360 degrees.

Cept it hasn’t been that simple.

It started out much the same. When it came time to start lining up the tread, I created an empty at the origin (which puts it dead center of my wheel, applied an array modifier to the tread, copied it out, then used the simple deform modifier to bend it into shape.

First, the deform modifier wouldn’t work as long as I had the array modifier active. It’d deform per part if it were above the array, or all kinds of goofy stuff if it were below it. I had to apply the array, then set the origin to geometry to get it to come even close to doing a 360 degree bend. But it still wouldn’t quite match up, leaving a gap between the first and last on the array.

Like this

So what exactly am I doing wrong here? I figured it’d bend around the empty, but…no such luck.

#2

Post the .blend file.

make sure scale and rotation is applied on all meshes (ctrl+A)

#3

Alright. I packed two files into the zip. The base, before I started applying modifiers, and the end result with the modifiers.

Grab Here

#4

Curves had updates recently? idk, plain Circle converted works.
www.pasteall.org/blend/36354

#5

Excellent! Thanks! So all I needed to do was make a spline circle, align it with the surface of my tire, and use the curve modifier. That’s surprisingly easy.

Though there is one small problem. The gap between the first and last tread on the array is a little large. I tried fixing it by playing with the settings, but can’t seem to get a perfectly even array all throughout.

#6

You could try to scale up or down a whole shebang - tire itself. Gaps are and always had been a bit ‘jumpy’.

#7

That did it. Had to readjust some things, but I think I’ve got the jist of this now.

Thanks again. :smiley: