Rigging without Bones! Example: Tank Turret - BLENDER Constraints Tutorial

Hello! Today marks the start of my deep dive into constraint-based rigging for you all. Especially for mechanical stuff I like this more then any bone-based rigging just because it doesnt cludder my screen as much, and is usually faster. Hope I could help you all a bit!

[@loayrabie5375]

Thank you 😊

[@rayotoxi1509]

Do you use physical tracks for your hull or do you rigg them with constrains If you use constrains do you know how you could lets say make a working track becuse all the tutorials i have seen work but only for one axis ones i make a U turn the tracks go kaputt either turn the wrong way or go backward when the tank goes forward

[@gabbahfbx]

I rigged them with a mix of constrains and empties too yes. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fJ3TdHSNnLKqiNU&ab_channel=Arijan I used this tutorial as reference and adjusted it to my needs. Explaining everything over text would be quite challenging, but it essentially uses an empty to parent the curve you use to build the track out of tracklinks onto and then use constrains to move said empty, mooving the curve alongside. It should work for turns and movement aswell.

[@m.y.a.111]

Sorry Im a noob rigger, but I want to know if this could work for a armored vhl. I just want to create a basic control for the turret in Unity.

[@gabbahfbx]

You can apply this to any turret or similar; but constraint based rigging does not translate into Unity. If you animate it in Blender beforehand and export the animations and later apply them in Unity, that would work though. Hope I could help!

[@user-uj7ck4dw3l]

how would you make the parent chain? i parent it all to the hull but now i can't move the turret on its own

[@gabbahfbx]

You mean you can't roate the turret anymore? That shouldnt really be the case, as the complete turret should be parented onto the empty I created in the video as a master object. You can parent that empty onto the hull or a correspondend empty tho and everything should work fine. I am planing to make a video dedicated about parent hierarchies tomorrow, but if you want send me a screenshot of your hierarchie and I see what I can do :D

[@alkurdi130]

Thank you for this tutorial I am a beginner why don't you use bones to rig the model? ......

[@gabbahfbx]

Sometimes it is easier to set certain stuff up with contrains due to the nature in how the objects need to move. This imo is one of these cases

[@thatonedude8209]

the point arrow on the mantlet only seems to work if i select both axis x and invert x and because of that the moves inverted (up is down down is up) and whenever i change the rotation of the mantlet the gun slightly disconects from the mantlet and with the gun itself the arrow does not want to work at all and even tho i parent all the arrows to the circle it still does not want to rotate properly with the turret the gun just rotates but stays in the same place (the gun mantlet does seem to work fine tho)

[@gabbahfbx]

Cant really trouble shoot from afar, but check if you are in the respected Movement Spaces (Local or Global depending on the constraint.) Could also be that your object has a messed up origin or coordinate system.

[@thatonedude8209]

@@gabbahfbx i finally got it fixed turns out stepping away from it and coming back after a few days helped, fixed it in 5 min time apereantly the issue was that i needed to add extra limit on the x axis, got 3 limit values in total to get it to work perfectly still thx for your response

[@Norden_Treee0127]

Could this be used for a ship's turret as well?

[@gabbahfbx]

Yeah absolutly. You might have to adjust a few things to account for the multibe gun barrels but it should work regardless. The principles still apply ^^

[@clik12345]

Nice thk

[@gabbahfbx]

Thank you!

[@glumforge]

Such a system can be exported to UE5? Will it work better than bones?

[@WoodysFx]

you can animate your tank by any means, so long as you import it into unreal as an alembic cache. if you want to import the model and rig specifically as a skeletal mesh (an FBX), unreal expects a skinned mesh, and bones.

[@gabbahfbx]

Dont really work in Unreal much, so I cant comment on that specificly, but from my Unity knowledge I can give you the following answer: You can port most stuff into game engines, that are not mesh deformations, as those require shape keys to work. Meaning any transformation of an object (location, rotation or scale) can be ported across easily. Meaning if you would animate a specific movement in Blender, that should translate into Unreal regardless if the Rig still works or not, as it does not transform the mesh itself. What I dont know, if the Rig itself will make the port across. My guess would be no, as you are using constrains to ease the usage of said rig, so I have my doubt that this would work in Unreal. So my advice: Animate what you want in Blender, port across with either a direct bleder file import (unity allows for that, idk if unreal does tho) or an .abc import and go from there. Hope I could help!

[@dyno_cant_draw]

I was wondering, how would you rig a mantlet that has a cloth cover?

[@gabbahfbx]

hmmm difficult question; I might make a video about that at some point. You'd have to work with pinning groups (within the cloth sim) that are attached to the gun barrel; then keep the parent chain as I did here. Might be performance intensive tho

[@dyno_cant_draw]

@@gabbahfbx I see, thanks for the reply it's been bugging me and I couldn't really find much regarding it. Highly Appreciated!

[@gabbahfbx]

@@dyno_cant_draw Well gguess what; I figured something out and made a video about it, as you kinda peeked my interest with the question: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pX2UYYCveZZ9p7c Hope this helps you and others!

[@dyno_cant_draw]

@@gabbahfbx Yes! Highly appreciate it!