Tank track with ncloth
 

Im just trying to see if I can duplicate some thing I saw in lightwave (the tank moved on and over ground without a motion path), at the moment it is hard to model the cloth around the wheels so there is no stretch, any idears are welcome.......dave

Edit:I will do it manualy

OK done it manualy, what you are looking at is the ncloth reacting to the wheels, to meny beers to do any more tonight

Edit:this is good I am only using the default settings at the moment

Looks interesting dave...and the lagers sound good

cheers bullet

Just curious dave, wouldn't it be easier to model the treads in a 360 degree circle, apply a wire deformer to them, use a geometry constrain between the wire deformer to the road wheels , and then geometry constrain the road wheels to ground plane, Set up 2 sdk's on the tank treads, one to allow them to roll forwards and back when the tank group node is translated locally along the correct axis for forward in your orientation and another for the treads to rotate opposite to each other for left and right turns, so that all you have to do is then translate the tank around your scene, and maya does the rest for you?

i know the process its self is a bit more indepth, and i might have the geometry constrains backwards, it might be constrain the wire and wheels to teh ground, i don't recall off the top of my head, but...i would go that route other then use n cloth mate... just my two cents.

g-man

Sorry for not replying legend yes you are most likley right but I wanted to see if it could be done. I must admit I would not know how to do it your way if you could point me in the right direction for a tutorial I would be greatful, here is as far as I have got see link below...............dave

http://s979.photobucket.com/albums/a...ent=Track5.mp4

Not bad at all mate!

cheers bullet

DAve, i'll dig somethign up, or write you somethign later on to see hwat i can come up with, don't have the time at the moment, sorry. But i'll put it on my to do list for the evening.

Dave, this is the best way to do a tank track that i've ever found
It works for tank tracks, Chains on gears, Chain saw blades, anything of that nature.

http://www.noir.org/tutorials/Xen%20.../treadtut.html

ITs the way i would set up a system like this that was necessary for animation.
allows for geometry constraint to the ground plane, and easy setup of SDK linked and driven y the Tanks group node's translate and rotate so that all you ever have to do after initial setup is to just grab the tank group in outliner and translate or rotate it as you please, everything else will then be automated.

hope this helps,
G-man

Hi Legend
I did some thing simular I used the create animation snapshot, make a nurb circle adjust to the shape of the wheels then change the time line to how meny you think you need then run snapshot. The only little problem doing this is the bottom half are upside down but I fixed that with running the snapshot to where invert then change the motion path then run again...........dave

This one runs a little better.............dave

http://s979.photobucket.com/albums/a...nt=Track10.mp4

Modelling the hull and a turret, know idea how the end result will be doing it as I go along. I havent used the 3 button on the hull or the hatch see how it comes along..............dave

DAve mate, On something like this, just to keep poly count in check, you might try setting the mesh up as if you were planning to smooth it, but just soften the normals instead. Larger pieces that can be seen better this will not work for but smaller detail pieces this is a great solution, instead of making a bolt for instance that is 100 polys after smooth to look good. Have one that's 15 polys or what ever with softened normals, Unless you plan on having up close and really tight shots on all the detail.

For mid range and small details though, The soften edge on a mesh set up for smoothing gives you the same effect of roundness, With the added bonus that you can always smooth it later with no additional effort if you want, since its set up like that already.

hope that made sense

G-man

Thanks Legend
I dont think I am going to get any closer than the shots I am posting. It will be a animation in the end, The only things on the hull that are smoothed are the tubes. I did have your way in mind model so it could be smooth if it did not look right but have not cleaned the mesh up yet but I will do..............dave

Looking good so far dave. My only suggestion / request would be please render with a background color other the black.

All I can assume is that everyone but me keeps their gamma set really high because I cannot see any detail in black background renders.

I have to save the images, then open them in photoshop, then crank the bejesus out of the gamma to see any detail.

For surface details, renders with a light grey material, against a medium grey environment background, on top of a medium grey stage works well. AO renders are best.

I do understand ctbram, my eye sight is not as good as it was, is this better for you.............dave

For those curious, Here is a sample of three cubes, the top row shows them as the look
the bottom shows their wires..
Cube on left is a normal cube edge loops cut into it and no changes to the normals
Middle cube is the same one, duplicated with Softened normals on entire object.
the Right cube is the same as those two only with the smooth preview on.
as you can see there isn't much difference in the way that Center and Right cube look it only comes into play with close shots, or shows that the sharp corners on the cube are seen edge on and become apparent.
Obviously this will not work for larger pieces of a hero model, but for smaller detail pieces, or for mid range shots, it works really well.
And all you have to do is toggle smooth to get the effect, since you still use the same base mesh,
Saves a lot of time on renders, view port navigation ect and give you a very good representation of an actually smoothed model.

G-man

much better Dave and it is looking really great!

Thanks Legend, ctbram
This turret is not in stone done about 8, not sure about the mantelet lots more to put on. This should be easy for me as I used to make tank models all the time when I was in my teens..............dave

Forgot this

Looking really good mate!!!

cheers bullet

Little update, the mantel is smoothed............dave

Looks good dave, it's got a very stylized almost cartoon like look to it at the moment which I really like.

Did you ever watch any parts in the tank tutorial on simply lightwave btw? I've heard it's supposed to be great but it's a complete beast almost 30 hours long. I think david mitchell almost had a nervous breakdown when he made it, he spent many months on it and completely disappeared for a while:)

Thanks Miss-Nova
I think it looks a bit simplistic because I have made it from the wheels up (this started out as a test for Ncloth) and I am trying to stick to hard edge modelling on the hull(no 3 button) to see how much I can do. No I did not get that tutorial but I did make a sherman tank in lightwave that was good to look at but being one of my first models the mesh was full on ngons, I would post a picture but its on my old pc that had a hart attack, I know your learning lightwave its not as hard as maya...........dave

Edit:At some point I will model a M4 Sherman in maya

It's looking good Dave.

Although, hard surface modeling does not mean unsmoothed. It refers to a class of model that is man made / manufactured and as such has machined or inorganic looking components, with chamfers, bevels, tight edges, and corners or facets. All of which can be achieved in a smoothed model.

Hard surface modeling lends itself to many unsmoothed shapes though, especially boxy components where edge bevels do a very good job of replicating the look of a machined part, which your current model has plenty.

Just a wire shot...........dave

http://i979.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/TankWire.jpg

Looking great dave

Just checked out your playblast of the tracks in motion, very nice indeed! A little fast but I got the feel for how it would look trundling along a dirt road.
I'll look forward to seeing how you do with the texturing, good luck with it!

Wire looks great Dave. Nice and clean.

You might want to take all the inner bevel edges and smooth them. Just keep the outer edges hard. This will reduce the faceting. The number of edges in the turret bevel might be a little higher then needed. But it's still less then smoothing so no real penalty.

It's funny when you start off with a test and it takes on a life on it's own like that. There's a lot of nice detail on that tank and I also think the playblast has a really nice feel to it, look forward to seeing it move. Let us know if you ever build an M4, we'll force you to come and work for sm for a while;)


You're right about Lightwave i didn't get too far into it yet but I think the split between modeler and layout makes it a lot easier to wrap your head around. It's counter intuitive though when you're used to one 3D app like the extrude and extract, I also spent 5 minutes just figuring out how to spin my camera around and get a render. Makes you feel sort of handicapped.

Thanks Dango77
Texturing god not thought of that, head stuck in modelling and dynamics LOL I hate cars that float hopefully I will have the tank going over hill with the suspension full working thats the hope
Thank ctbram
Still have some mesh that needs cleaning, I have been softening the whole object sounds like I am not quite doing it right...........thanks dave

Edit: Sorry Miss Nova we must have posted at the same time, it is stange how this one is working out its just I did not want to animate a box on wheels but make it look good, I would make the sherman into 100 parts allowing for tea breaks........LOL.........dave

Little update

Looking sweet mate!

cheers bullet

This has been the hardess part to model still have to do the side indent, might cheat and do a normal map...........dave

Yep like I have said a 1000 times negative space in in hard surface models is a royal pain.

Is that all one geo dave?

Yes a pain ctbram, no bullet the spout is seperate only because I might need to mirror again when I have finished I will boolean it............dave

Alright like a idiot I modelled the side of the jerry can 60% happy with it..............dave

So how did you do it dave....it looks like a boolean but hard to tell?

cheers bullet

I cut it out in the end with the split poly tool, might redo the whole lot as the mesh looks like a dogs dinner.............dave

I was thinking (I tried it and it worked) of using the 'create poly tool' then lay the new face on the can...combine.delete some faces and then bridge tool. I just dont know how to get the shape to stick to a surface first (only by hand)..or you could make the shape a cloth?? then drop onto it? object placement even...just theories

cheers bullet

Make live might work for the first one, I would not use cloth as it stretches to easy..............dave