Help:animated tank tred
 

Hey, i need help knowing how to make an animated tank tred in max. I know there is an easy way ( i saw ted boardman do it once ), and i just can't how remember. If anyone knows how, or knows of a good tutorial, please hook me up!

Thankx.

I think I once saw a tutorial (maybe at 3dcafe.com?) that made one link of a tread, made a whole bunch of them in a line using an array, and then path-constrainted them all to a sort of oval shaped spline. Hope this helps.

Edit: found that tutorial: http://3dcafe.com/asp/tutorials/max/...k/cattrack.asp

constrain each center point of the treads.
or just motion paths that the treads follow.
if you are moving over an illregular surface then just create clusters on the motion path that are constrainted to be x amount of inches/mm/feet/cm from a designated surface.
Max should be able to do some of this..
its pretty basic.

More help needed.
 

How do i attach several items, so that they become one object? I can't use groups, i need one mesh or whatever. What do i do?

simple draw one link, make an array and space them so they link up, attach them so there one object, make a spline, an elipse or a connect the dots for path of the tread, and use the modifer assing path and select the spline

it works with treads chains belts etc...

*Mutters something about edit mode and crappy max...

Contact Dan Ward from 45. Him and his brother Luke figured out some way to do that and did it back in the 2001 animation that we put out.

It is very easy ... first draw one link...then shift drag it the distance you want it from the other one... next type in the amount of links you want..
now create a closed spline the shape of your tread, after this simply apply path deform modifier and play with the settings u'll get it its's very easy

The real thing behind what you want to do is how detailed you want your tank tread to be. If you're looking for high quality detail you may want to take a quadpatch or a plane with lots of segments. You can then go into Photoshop and make an outline of the tread you want into a displacement map (If you need a larger explanation of this I can make one for you) and apply the map to the plane or quadpatch. This creates very detailed treads.

To animate a tread or chain I'd suggest making a spline of where you want the chain to be, then duplicate the individual part of the chain/tread and use the modifier (Modifier tab> Path Deform). After this you can use the options to place the individual pieces of the tread and use the percent tool to make them go around.


M. Hallock
Dondero High School

That's me above, I was posting under a friends account at school. You can contact me on ICQ or AIM if you have more questions.

ON second thought this isn't an EXACT way of doing it... because as u've seen the treads flex at the curves and they shouldn't this is incorrect... that is...using path deform... any one have ideas on how to animate it so it looks EXACTLY like the real thing...(no flexing treads)

Out of curiousity, what tank are you modelling? Some of the older tanks from World War II and World War I had steel type treads and had no flex to them, nowadays some of the tank treads like on the M1A1 Abrams has flex to it so they don't break on rocks or sharp material, along with a type of matting on top of the treads.

I think I have a freeware plugin that reduces the amount of deformation on the path deform. The reason there is deformation is because if the curve changes quickly, the object compensates for it and it deforms.

Go here and go to the plugins page. Then look for "Normalize Spline." It gets rid of a lot of the deformation, I'm not sure if it works with MAX 5 on up though.

Ted's training site.
 

Here is the Autodesk trainign vids. I am pretty sure this is what you were talking about. i believe it has Ted doing a low poly tank w/ a tred.