Tank Treads

notman

Hey guys, does anyone have a good Max tutorial on making tank treads? I've seen some, but they either aren't for animation, or they cripple the mesh as it bends around the tread path.

I also have some other max related questions, but I'll start that in a different post

Ryno

No time for a detailed answer, but model one tread secion, then use a path deform.

notman

I think that is the method I used from the other tutorials and it deforms the mesh badly. Maybe I was doing it wrong

Ryno

Try the spacing tool then, it won't deform the mesh.

sinistergfx

What I would do have done is make a path, animate a piece of the tread along the path, and then use snapshot to generate all the links.

But I think the spacing tool will do exactly the same thing.

notman

I haven't worked with the spacing tool, so I'll have to see how that will assist me. Thanks for the advice.

FatAssasin

My original message got hosed, but here's a scene showing the setup you need. Use a path constraint. I'll go into more detail if you need it.

Max 8:
http://jhaywood.com/stuff/tankTread.zip

Movie:
http://jhaywood.com/stuff/tankTread.mov