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Subject: Can you express the caterpillar of a tank?

smalll opened this issue on May 31, 2008 · 12 posts

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smalll ( ) posted Sat, 31 May 2008 at 4:58 PM · edited Thu, 09 January 2025 at 11:24 AM

Hi.
I need some idea.
I want to express the caterpillar of a tank.
But, how?
Do you have idea?
Morph?
Or poserble prop?
or?
How?
Can you do it?
Please help me..

Helgard ( ) posted Sat, 31 May 2008 at 6:15 PM

If you mean that you want the tracks of the tank to animate, it is possible in Poser, but very hard to do.

Here is a link to show how it looks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh83FHGnsic

You can download the free tank I made:
http://www.vanishingpoint.biz/freestuff.asp?StartNo=174

It will show you how to do it. If you really want to try, I will send you the tutorial on how to do it, but I must warn you that it is very hard to do, and only 4 people can do it so far.

Your specialist military, sci-fi, historical and real world site.

Gareee ( ) posted Sat, 31 May 2008 at 7:35 PM

(and he's one of them!)

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

Jestertjuuh ( ) posted Sat, 31 May 2008 at 8:24 PM

Darn, that was a great animation.

Hat off.

I am not a complete idiot, some parts are missing :)

To go to my home page, click the banner below.

Check my freebies on a regular base, click the banner below.

lesbentley ( ) posted Sat, 31 May 2008 at 9:00 PM

One idea is to make the tracks as a cylinder or wheel, then use a magnet parented to the tank to squash the cylinder, then rotate the cylinder.

ockham ( ) posted Sat, 31 May 2008 at 10:45 PM

Here's a crude example of a technique Helgard mentioned in an earlier discussion. The track doesn't move at all, but the U-offset of the material is animated. This would work well if the track segments are quite small....

My python page
My ShareCG freebies

ockham ( ) posted Sat, 31 May 2008 at 10:49 PM

The material method is very simple. It doesn't need any ERC or joints, just a material setup like this.

My python page
My ShareCG freebies

smalll ( ) posted Sat, 31 May 2008 at 11:36 PM

You are so kind of me.
I have no words to express my gratitude.
I thougt it is almost impossible.
Thank you Helgard, Gareee, Jestertjuuh, lesbentley, ockham.
You are genius in poser.

markschum ( ) posted Sun, 01 June 2008 at 12:21 AM

theres a document on complex relationships with erc and arc .

http://www.atlantis23.com/arcbeta/arc1to4beta.zip
http://www.atlantis23.com/ERC/HowToWriteERCcode.zip

I dont know if that will help you much though.

I would use Helgards or one of the animated texture ideas .

Helgard ( ) posted Sun, 01 June 2008 at 2:03 AM · edited Sun, 01 June 2008 at 2:08 AM

Markscum,

If anyone really wants it, I have a tutorial based on the VK technical explanation at the atlantis23 site that explains it step by step, including how to make the morphs, and the entire segments of code that you can copy and paste. (The method VK originally made only works if the tracks have perfect arcs, most tracks are not arc but loops and sagging bits, so I modified the method to work with irregular tracks).

Ockham, I am going to give your method a try, I have a pedwalk I need to make, and that method would be perfect.

Your specialist military, sci-fi, historical and real world site.