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Author: Paul Frary
This fairly simple tutorial will teach you how
to make a very realistic and fully animatable
caterpiller track.
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Step 1
Create a spline that looks roughly like
the picture on the left. It does not need
to be exactly like this, it is up to your
own personal taste but one thing to
remember is that both sides MUST be the
opposite of each other. So that when you
come to duplicate it, it will interlink
with the other sections.
Then add an "Extrude" modifier with a
value of 10, again this is just a guide,
feel free to use whatever value you think
looks right.
Ok, now we have are first section, if you
want to you may add a "UVW Map" Modifier
at this stage, it may may things easier
later on. |
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Step 2
Ok, now we need to duplicate this many
times in order to make our track. I made
40 copies of it but it's all down to
personal taste. You could either copy it
many times, placing them as you go (easy
to do but can get quite boring), or you
could use an array. In this instance make
sure you put the correct value in the
Incremental -> Move section of the
Dialogue box so that each section overlaps
with the "cogs" of the last one, and put
40 in the 1D value box at the bottom. This
can take some experimenting to get right
but worth it in the long run. It should
end up looking similar to the image
opposite. Click it for a full view.
After you have done that you will need to
make it into one object. To do this, click
on any one of them and press the "Attach
List" button in the modifier tab section,
then select all of them from the list that
pops up. |
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Step 3
Create a Spline that resembles the one
pictured opposite. Again the design of
this is entirely up to you. This is what
we are going to use to shape the track
that we have so that it looks more like a
caterpiller track
Now, select the track object by clicking
on it, you will need to add a "Path Deform
Modifier" to the object, you will find
this by pressing the "More" button.
Then click the "Pick Path" button from the
drop down menu and click on the spline
that we just created. You will notice that
your track has changed shape, but it is
probably looking quite strange at the mo.
You'll need to change the "Path Deform
Axis" to Y by clicking the radio button
underneath the "Path Deform Parameters"
section in the drop down menu.
It is most likely that the ends of your
track are not joined up properly. To
remedy this you will need to scale the "Spline"
up or down accordingly until the ends are
connected. |
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Step 4
Now that we have the track modelled we
can start animating it. This is
surprisingly easy since we have used the
"Path Deform" Modifier. All we need to do
is change the "Percent" value to animate
the track. So click on the Animate button,
move the frame slider up to 100 and change
the "Percent" value to 100. There you go,
a fully animatable and realistic looking
cterpiller track. All you need to do now
is create a "filler" for the middle part
of the track and then apply your texture
it. Simple.
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