Poser 7 Mac Leopard. How can I animate a Conveyor belt in Poser 7 any advice appreciated. any tutorials etc.

Assuming you have a texture on the belt, animate the appropriate offset on the Image_Map node.

Which to animate (U_Offset, or V_Offset) will depend on the orientation of the UV map of the belt.

Let's suppose the belt is UV mapped horizontally. So you have to change the U_Offset from 0 to 1 to do one full "rotation".

If you want it to rotate around 3 cycles, then animate U_Offset from 0 to 3.

If you have a color map and a bump map, animate both identically.

I will try this. But this will not really move the belt will it, I don't know. sounds like it just animates the texture. Thanks

If the texture and displacement are drawn to match, AND if the UV mapping is proper,
this method will work neatly.   For most belts, the only thing you really see is a moving
texture anyway.  (Imagine the fan belt on a car, where you see the label zooming past
repeatedly.)

The exception is when the belt has compartments or buckets like a
grain elevator "leg", in which case you'll need real physical motion.

The UVmapping is really the hard part.  I found it best to model the belt as a nice
round cylinder, then map it as cylinder, then morph it into the long belt shape.

Or you could try Draw-A-Cord, now that it works for you... :)

I didn't think of that good idea.Looks like I'll be having some fun.

having had to stare at converyor belts for a good portion of me workin' life, you could probably get away with just having the seam move down the line at regular intervals....;)

I can't figure out how to animate the texture in Poser 7, I have got it working in my 3d software Cheetah 3d. I'm searching the ref in Poser now.

OK I figured it out and can see the animation in the Material room the texture moves but in the scene Pose window I see no movement. Now I'm at a stand still.

There are some battle tanks with catapillar treads in the MP, that is a similar problem - maybe the vendors have solved the rotation, but it would cost to see how

The Pose Window preview does not pay attention to scaled, offset, or animated textures.

Why do you care? Aren't you planning to render?

Doh Yep that works. Thanks to everyone.

There are some battle tanks with catapillar treads in the MP - but it would cost to see how

Or you could download the free one:

http://www.ontarget3d.com/Products/185-m1-abrams-for-poser.aspx

But that solution is not ideal for a conveyer belt. The tank track programming works for tracks, and things like an escalator, belt fed machine gun, etc, where the links are seperate pieces of geometry. For a conveyer belt the method above of animating the texture is the best solution.