There's so many useful tricks for Blender that take people like you to dig up and present to the awestruck audience. Fantastic and very helpful little video. I was working with instances just the other day, and this will help my approach enormously. Though there is a problem with instances that I haven't found a solution for: you cannot, in any way, modify the instanced object... like, give them different materials or such. I found a method to solve that using particle systems instead... but it's very clunky. You wouldn't have an idea to make that work?
hmm, for this you can use a random color input for this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3G0OxL2lfLs.html&ab_channel=BlenderSecrets This might let you place a random color, or texture on some of the instances. If you're looking for something more direct you may want to make the instances real and then parent them to the other objects using a vertex parent: docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/scene_layout/object/editing/apply.html#make-instances-real ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bDwMOPkN6RI.html
@@LevelPixelLevel Thank you for these infos. Yes, these work fine, but only for random variations. I am trying to get a regular pattern transferred... explicitly: a am modelling a mesh of coloured beads. My solution was: Define vertex groups for each single variant, then use these vertex groups in different hair/object particle systems. Problem is: you need to set up a new obeject, a vertex group and a particle system for each variant. It gets clunky rather quickly, if you use three different colours and four different shapes. But it does work, and I was just looking for a simpler method to achive this.
@@Groffili Yeah, I think if I wanted that level of control I would do something similar to what you did here, that is always the trade-off in Blender with procedural set ups vs full geo set ups. You may want to check out the animation nodes though as there might be a solution in there for what you're trying to achieve (although they do take a while to learn) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kpWvNPfTGDM.html&ab_channel=JenAbbott%2FOldeTinkererStudio
For some reason mine is shearing the track pieces Edit: It was the type of curve Edit 2: When I use a different object, each instance has a different angle
Is there a way to hide that plane you are using, to emit the instances, from render? Without just giving it a transparent material. Thank you for making this video.
I made a tutorial like this one a long time ago and many others are now being replaced from scratch, and I'm doing it for version 2.9. Here is a link to my old tutorial with a full animation in xyz direction . I plan to repeat this tutorial, but not now. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-82H-v423iSE.html
@@999ooo999ooo999ooo Thanks for your reply, I saw this one you made: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FUSucIXlFFM.html would be nice if you can do how they can rotate not along the x axis only, but also when the treads rotate on the Z axis.
Very good tutorial. I like it a lot. Your channel will grow up really fast for sure. And have you seen my Minecraft Animations made in Blender by the way?
When you have problems with the Rotation and Size after applying the Instances: You have to keep the Transform of the Object you want to have on the curve at its Origin values (1,1,1) and change the transforms in Edit Mode.
u didnt show how u made the 1st tank track, bu thx anyways, also my tread only curves around half of the bezier, help? edit: nvm i found out i just had to increase the count in array modifier
Are the planes the the tread is instanced to not also going to be rendered, what if you wanted to hide the planes, if you toggled off Show In Render does that turn off the instanced object as well.
Great to learn about instancing. The only issue is that it seems that the animation of the tread only works with the curve fixed in place; i.e., you cannot animate the movement and move the tread forward at the same time. So, you would have to move everything else backward past the tread to give the illusion of movement? I'm relatively new to blender, so I'm sure there is something I have missed . . . can you advise?
obviously i'm a bit late, but if you still haven't figured it out you can just parent the curve to the track. this way the curve will move with the track and the track will stay on the curve's path.
For this you can parent this set up to a bone and have that be your main controller. Then you can drive the x axis with the forward axis on the bone. This is similar to an auto car set up, but it's a little easier on a tank. Let me see if I can make a more advanced video on this in the future!
@@LevelPixelLevel What I mean is, when making constraints to objects to do things, I've found that once they are moved away from the world origin point they all go crazy and off-center etc. Unless I keep it near to the world origin point it that is. But I've a big project with so much stuff going on I can't keep constraints only going on at the world origin point etc.
@@LandersWorkshop Ahh gotcha, I think for something like this I'll have to make a video. I have a couple of topics coming up where I'll go in-depth into rigging an asset rather than just smaller tips and tricks. Hopefully, I have something for a tank or a car coming up soon.
When I change the position of my bezier circle in either the x or z axis then it messes up the location and scale of the treads. Have you found a way to fix this? I am trying to add treads for my tank, but I cannot move the treads to the appropriate x and z position because of this.
Hey, select on the parent object, go to the object tab - go to apply, and choose make instances real: www.levelpixellevel.com/uploads/1/1/7/8/117873610/instances_orig.png
when i use the curve modifier, it isnt wrapping the tred aroud it, it just "pins" the tred to it and it remains a straight line of treds, not a curve. Does anyone know why? Thank you.
You might have to bake this down first to actual objects, to export this to unity everything needs to be objects, the object instancing will note work.
Actually ngons aren't deformed. More interesting how to prevent rotation go bonkers. Because this is only good to move along Y axis. As long as you rotate this or move upwards/downwards, this be ruined.
