Subject: More Clanking Treads
From: [email-masked]
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 11:10:07 -0500

Hah!  This is fascinating!  I just read the Tank Tread Thread (say that five
time fast!).  It's always amazing how many ways there are to do the same
thing in Lightwave.  

Bone treads, morph treads, null treads!

A couple of years ago I solved the Tank Tread problem with a series of
identical tread shaped objects each controlled by a null object.  I was going
to include it in my "Machines" tutorial tape, but there wasn't room.  The
biggest problem I ran into was the amount of coreography (sp) I needed to do
get the treads to move up and down for terrain, etc.  But it was actually
only a 6 frame move to get one tread completely into it's new position and
worked very smoothly.  I never actually used this for anything, so it's not
completely refined.  There was a certain amount of "slippage" as the treads
ingressed or egressed the drive and main idler wheels, but this was not
noticable from any distance.  Dealing with the sheer number of nulls and
treads was difficult too.   I imagine using a single tread object and a morph
target solves this problem.  (I just never even thought of a morph!)

I'll look forward to reading the LWPro article (haven't got it yet), and also
any tutorials that come out of this thread.

Judging from the incredible response, maybe we could have a LW Tread mailing
list?  (just kidding Dave)

Bart Palamaro
Dark Horse Productions