Itoo Software Forum

RailClone => RailClone Pro (*) => Topic started by: superrune on October 26, 2021, 02:53:30 PM

Title: Offset for animated tank tracks?
Post by: superrune on October 26, 2021, 02:53:30 PM

Hi!

I am trying to make animated tank tracks in Railclone. I get perfect distribution across a spline, but I'm not sure how to animate the tracks. Is there a way to offset the entire railclone system along a looped spline?

Thanks!!

Title: Re: Offset for animated tank tracks?
Post by: Paul Roberts on October 26, 2021, 03:18:25 PM

If you don't mind a little bit of deformation then you can do this by animating the segment's X Translation value. Check out the attached file for an example.

Best,
Paul

Title: Re: Offset for animated tank tracks?
Post by: superrune on October 27, 2021, 04:56:39 PM

I would prefer no deformations, since the tracks will be very close to the camera in some instances :)

Looking in some older threads, I found I could animate the bevel offset to shift the entire track one segment. It doesn't seem to work with in-camera motion blur which is a slight issue. Do you have a wishlist tracker somewhere?  8)

Title: Re: Offset for animated tank tracks?
Post by: Paul Roberts on October 28, 2021, 01:31:26 PM

Hi,

Bevel Offset is good solution. Motion blur is an issue though as you pointed out. There are technical reasons why motion blur doesn't work. I'll pass it on to the development team, but I'm not sure that it could be fixed.

Paul

Title: Re: Offset for animated tank tracks?
Post by: superrune on October 29, 2021, 08:07:10 AM

Thanks!

There really isn't any good solution for tank tracks in 3ds Max AFAIK, unless you go for complex rigging solutions. They tend to be pretty slow unfortunately. If there could be a solution from Railclone, animators doing tanks, bicycles and other animating chains would be really happy :)