Blender Tank Tracks Tutorial | Physics & Rigid Body Rigging (Arijan)

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How to rig and animate tank tracks with physics, rigid bodies and constraints in blender. This is an improved version of an existing tutorial which received video quality complaints.
Blender Tank Tracks Tutorial | Physics & Rigid Body Rigging (Arijan)

[@Aysenur.Subasi]

Recently got my hands on your book and it is actually really helpful. I didn't expect much from a product on KZbin but it actually has a lot of cool stuff in it. Thank you for your lessons.

[@ArijanRace]

Thanks a ton for the support. I am glad to see that it is helpful to my viewers!

[@pawezukowicz6122]

Using Blender for 6 years... didn't know about holding alt to apply changes to all objects... Feels good. Thanks man

[@aliosanlou4425]

A great toturial with key points explained , well done

[@omermagen824]

First I want to thank you for making these tutorials. They contribute a lot to the blender community. Now, I recently made a very similar rig for my tank. However, I used a cloth simulation for the tracks instead of simulating each link separately. This should be more efficient though I dont have the latter to compare. Basically what I did was create a path much like you did, then using geo nodes I resampled it to have as many links as needed. Converted to mesh and extruded. Later I modeled a link and instanced it on the cloth's faces. I ended up adding two planes on the sides to keep the tracks from falling off the wheels and also add collision (independent of rigid body) and set friction to max. I also had to add motor constraint to all of the wheels and not just the sprockets. After some fiddling it worked and it ran in real time on my ol gtx750. Lastly I added drivers to the motors so that I could control the tank in realtime using an empty.

[@ArijanRace]

That sounds interesting and I haven't thought of it before. If you would create a tutorial it would likely get lots of views.

[@jellygrass777]

Subscribed, that's the clearest and most straight to the point info I've seen on Blender.

[@s00n62]

for who's facing problems ,at first i faced some glitches like the entire vehicle flying or the wheels rotation weirdly so here's some fixes: 1. select the vehicle body and the wheel and connect them instead of doing the opposite like the video. 2. always apply rotation/scale especially for wheels and if applying rotation change's collision cage rotation use delta transforms. 3.make sure that the wheels origin point is in the middle of the wheel it may be some times tricky as if like its in the center but its actually couple of cm's away from the actual center even with the origin point to volume shortcut. EDIT:ALWAYS apply scale and rotation.

[@dylanmercergo7853]

hello! wdym select the body and wheels and connect them>? so when applying rotation, use delta trnasform?

[@s00n62]

@dylanmercergo7853 1. Select wheels then body lastly then view3d→object→rigid body→connect 2.(BEFORE EVERYTHING) Commonly imported wheels/objectmeshs' rotations from external websites are janky in blender. A nice way to fix that is to make the wheels face up-words then applying rotation, then instead of using "Rotate" (Or the R shortcut), use the delta transforms

[@mumimumimumimumi]

Thank you for your tutorial. It saved a lot of time for beginners.

[@huzeyfesina]

Thank you so much for everything! You helped me a lot! keep up the good work!

[@booster-b3568]

God bledd you for this tutorial!

[@alansart5147]

Great video! Keep up the good work! :D

[@czanimations1]

Nice tutorial man! One question: Do you know how i would make this work when my wheels are overlapping eatch other (like on Tiger E or Panzer A). Please i am struggling with this so much.

[@dylanmercergo7853]

Hey there, my wheels keep somewhat exploding when landing on bumpy terrain. I did all the things you said here, yet it just keeps flying off, literally. Also it does this with a slanted, flat plane. Help please.

[@ghazichafik5449]

On the ground, make the collision in the rigid body "mesh" and not convex hull

[@judetorre1900]

Thanks for the tutorial. I learned a lot

[@ExpoTV14]

hallo why cylinder collision shape is normal to wheels please tell me solution

[@clawsmedia8752]

Awesome Tutorial ...Thank you

[@bypixelss7106]

Amazing Tutorial. Do you know how I can turn the wheels and move the tank without cancelling the physics?

[@V4VestA]

If you want the wheels to be paired (rigidly) with suspension parts, what should we do? I’m referring to if the wheels will not raise individually, but in pairs, having two wheels attached to a suspension piece…

[@toxic01ali]

thanks for the good explain .. if you have time for explain something for animations ❤

[@VeryFunStudio]

Nice. Although I'm currently making animal videos, but I like tanks too! (especially TAMIYA tanks). Already subbed! Will follow your videos.

[@vladartiomav2473]

Bravo 👏

[@Eriodas]

I limited de Linear Z axis to 0 in sprockets, but they are still falling to the ground. They seem to fall on just one side of the constraint though, the other sticks... any idea why?

[@SaiyedR]

could you make a tutorial on how train wheels runs on track in blender rigid body simulation. I tried but wheels aren't working properly.

[@grifor5664]

Thanks, i just have one problem, my tracks dont work, they look like they are not connect correctly to the wheels

[@PanzerWulf]

Szia! A rengeteg arra utaló jel arra mer következtetni, hogy magyar vagy és merészkedek magyarul kérdezni. Ez a megoldás tök jó, realisztikus és nagyon könnyű viszont van egy nagy problémám, én általába nem csak sima lapokat használok lánctalpnak, hanem kicsit jobban kidolgozott lánctalp szemet, viszont ezt csak keep transform-álom a lappal, hogy a fizikai számitás könnyeb legyen a gépemnek elemben ez azzal jár, hogy minden láncszemnél cursor-t oda, ctrl+V és transform ami egy kb 70 szemes lánctalpnál több mint brutális, erre tudnál e valami jobbacska praktikát vagy megoldást? Válaszodat előre is köszönöm!

[@ArijanRace]

Szia, Horvát vagyok, but I live in Budapest. I'm not sure if I understood your question right from google translate, as you know, your language is pretty tough to translate ;) Did you try using the array & curve modifiers to put your tracks in place? If you apply those modifiers, you will have the individual tracks exactly where you want them. Let me know if you need more explanation, hopefully I didn't completely misunderstand your question.

[@fatcat5323]

but what about powering the tracks with motors and driving and steering the tank?

[@ArijanRace]

Good idea for the next video. I already have one on my channel but a remake would be nice as well.

[@fatcat5323]

@@ArijanRace Looking forward to it! I love your tutorials!

[@CreativeSpark-ry2xd]

It won’t work when i try to separate loose parts, how do i fix this?

[@dylanmercergo7853]

Could you try it with modeled suspension?

[@md.zannatunferdaus351]

Nice

[@ЮрийКоханчук-щ1в]

thank you dude/=

[@쿠사슴]

could you active physix for sherman wheel arms with blender?

[@leafdrop_original]

i tried rig my tank. it work at first but for somereason my tank wont go more than 2 meters? it seems like the tires got "hanged back" . how do i fix this ? great tutorial btw

[@solarlocker80]

you may need to make you rigid body simulation work over more keyframes if it is cutting off, i've forgotten how to do this but there a lots of short tutorials, hope this is helpful

[@ockertmaghielvanheerden5486]

Hi there I loved your Tutorial but I have one question though, is it possible to use this in Unreal Engine ? I have a Bobcat that I want to Import and Drive in Unreal. Is this possible ?

[@uriivolosheniuk1347]

Activate windows. Nothing personal, just having same issue, my point is - I'm getting crazy when somebody mention that on my recordings.

[@mateuszjedut2406]

I did my tank lately in Blender and my only problem is that the tracks doesn't want to fit into sprocket. I don't know why

[@mrpotato8196]

Did you make the separate collider for the sprockets like he did? or did you just stick with convex colliders

[@a22m2forcabrasileiravitual2]

ola .. consegue fazer um video de uma esteira para uma escavadeira... com comando para jogo ???

[@Shattered3582]

nice tutorial, but i don't have the model i'll come back another time

[@ArijanRace]

No worries my friend, I made a tutorial for how to make it

[@Shattered3582]

@@ArijanRace found it thanks. i am enrolling for an animation course but until that i am trying to find stuff that will enhance my capabilities in blender. and haven't found much i think am just not sure what to do first

[@ArijanRace]

@@Shattered3582 I would suggest getting comfortable with modeling first since that is the backbone of everything. Then ease into learning about how to animate it using simple keyframes

[@lchunleo]

Thanks for sharing. But I noted when I do the origins to geometry the individual separated origins are not on the track (curved around the path) but on a straight line..also can I know your blender version ? Thanks

[@solarlocker80]

I see you posted this a year ago but if it helps you may want to check if you applied the curve modifier before doing origins to geometry

[@habagani]

I'm your 666th like 😂

[@xnx304]

you fast as a rocket 🤣

[@Tronnos840]

I had no Chance to patent the Objekts?!???

[@SaiyedR]

do you work for any cg company?

[@ArijanRace]

No, i only make KZbin videos.

[@maxsaylor9333]

how to transfer this physics to unity3d?

[@ArijanRace]

As far as I know, blender physics simulations will not work in unity.

[@maxsaylor9333]

@@ArijanRace thanks for the response and the great content you are delivering. Please keep it up!!!

[@tomiivaswort6921]

hmmmm yes. 10kg of mass for a tank hull...

[@wolf-dll]

Blender just crashed more than 100 times. I'm done with this. Switching to Houdini

[@seth6631]

Please make a m18 hellcat

[@Alirahnema_vfx]

It was very good. Thank you for visiting my channel

[@chish7690]

leave it at 69 likes