I am going to pause here, and answer any questions, and hope that I have not made massive errors in my calculations. There are many free Poser vehicles if you would like to test the calculator and make an animation, and on Tuesday I will be releasing the tank in the first post for free, so you can test the tank animation part of the calculator. I hope to have the whole tutorial up by Tuesday, by I am leaving the calculator to last in case people need some alterations, or added functions. So please, ask if you need a better explanation, that is the only way I can tailor the calculator to your needs. PS. The calculator will be free, just in case you were wondering.

Very nice 'pictorial' Helgard! I miss the calculator only! to follow you lol Thanks Cath

Well, first off, for the Yanks, could you also include Imperial measurements (probably be better as a separate file). Also, someone with OpenOffice.org should give this a try to make sure Calc can use it properly.

Thanks Cath. I am making improvements to the calculator as I go along, and hopefully I will be able to add another few useful functions, such as a Poser units convertor (although this will only be useful when moving the vehicle along the x or z axis, not a combination). I am also going to see about uphill and downhill calculations. If you can think of any other useful functions that need to be calculated for Poser, or converted, will you let me know. R_Hatch, I think for the Yanks I will just make a seperate version with everything in those primitive units, lol. I will sub-name this one the metric version. I am going to test it on a few other spreadsheet programs to see how well it runs. I doubt if it will work on many, as things like Pi are not standard in all spreadsheets. Thanks for the input.

confirmed : Openoffice can and does open/use Excel files. do it all the time here :)

Nice going, Helgard! Makes the Precious moves, yessss, we can.... Show others how to makes the Precious move.. Move Precious, Move.... They dids it... They wants to do it more... Landed the suckers, you did....snicker...

this is very cool. Where can i get the Calculator??

Is it tuesday yet? & if I over-rotate the back tires, duz anyone know a cheap & easy way to make smoke?

Great work!! Thanks. -jjsemp

Thank You for this tutorial. Is is very helpful. Waiting on the rest of it.

Moving tank tracks at last YAY...just a quickie qtn Helgard...I'm afraid mathematics was not my strong point in school, but what is Pi???? Cheers, keep up the good work :-)

"what is Pi???" Now THAT'S going to be a long answer!!!! ;-0 -jjsemp

Pi is ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle

or

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288 41971693993751058209749445923078164062862
0899862803482534 2117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481 1
17450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975 6659334461284756482337
86783165271201909145648566923460348 6104543266482133936072602491412737245870066
06315588174881 5209209628292540917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841 469
519415116094330572703657595919530921861173819326117931 051185480744623799627495
673518857527248912279381830119491 298336733624406566430860213949463952247371907
021798609437 0277053921717629317675238467481846766940513200056812714526356 08277
8577134275778960917363717872146844090122495343014654 9585371050792279689258923542019956112129021960864034418159813 6297747713099605187072113499999983729780499510597317328160963 1859502445945534690830264252230825334468503526193118817101000 3137838752886587533208381420617177669147303598253490428755468 7311595628638823
53787593751957781857780532171226806613001 9278766111959092164201989380952572010
65485863278865936153 3818279682303019520353018529689957736225994138912497217752834 7913151557485724245415069595082953311686172785588907509838175 etcetcetc could'nt resist ;)

Message edited on: 02/28/2005 15:51

Ooops, I made a mistake. That's what happens when you don't sleep for two days. Pi is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. In my Pi calculator I made it the radius, not the diameter. My original idea was that it would be more accurate to measure the radius than to measure the diameter and make sure it passes through the centre, but I forgot to add in the multiplication to get the figure back to diameter. Good thing I didn't release the calculator yet. OK, tutorial will continue in a few minutes, just need to get some drugs (caffeine and nicotine). As to the question of "What is Pi?". Pi is a number that has still not ever been calculated properly. The closest mathematicians have come, is a number 400 000 000 000 digits long. The number was first used by the Babylonians (2000BC), who calculated it at 3.125, and for modern use the number 3.14159 is considered acceptable for everyday use (Everyday use? Yeah, like we do use it everyday, lol!!).

OK, there is one more thing before you can render. Something specific to Poser. If anyone can guess what it is, they will win a free copy of the free JagdPanther. I will keep you in suspenders for a while, because I have to make some more pages of this tutorial.

I have received an e-mail asking about the differing opinions as to Poser units' values. This is one case where this does not matter. You are trying to achieve a believable speed for your vehicle, and a relative motion when compared to the rest of your scene, so that your wheels do not spin in one place, or move to slowly for the forward motion. So whatever scale and Poser utility you are using, your calculations will be correct, because you are calculating a relative motion. I will see if I can make an example using differing scales to show you that this does not matter.

Attached Link: http://www.hybridculture.co.uk/video/jagdpanther2.AVI

Attached Link: http://www.hybridculture.co.uk/Freestuff/PoserSpeedCalculator.zip

Wow! This is an incredible tutorial. Thanks for sharing. I hope everyone remembers to celebrate Pi Day, 13 days from now. That's right, on 3/14, you should bring a pie into work and share it with your co-workers. P.S. I don't mean to spoil your mini-contest, but the JAGD Panther is available for free for everyone to download. :) --John

Link doesn't work. Nice thread. :-)

.

I'm really interested in how to make non uniform tank treads for a sci-fi character. Are the tank tracks separate objects, or are they a "loop"? Sounds like something fun to tinker with.

Somebody knows what happend whit the tutorial and the archives, its INTERESTING!, But, I found early.

Attached Link: http://www.hybridculture.co.uk/animvehicle.htm