More than 4 wheels?

#1 Good question. I'd like to know too. Here's a thought. Use "fake" tires that animate with the main body when it moves. The way a tank tread works by not turning the tire isn't the same as on the buggy of course. So getting that to look right might be difficult. hmm...

#2 I am not sure if making a tank tread is possible at this time.

I did some experiments with tank shapes using two different approaches. One was to animate the tread UVs (works, makes for large file size) and using a IFL. I made dummy wheels for the roads wheels that were animated in the file with 'invisible' wheels to attach to the hub nodes. Works as a vehicle (replaces the buggy), but the vehicles don't support animations yet, so the treads don't animate.

The same file works as a player model, and the animations work, but the shape will not snap to the terrain normal (it stays level). The treads animate just fine nad it looks good on level terrain, but will not act correctly if the tank is z-turning.

Without making some code changes or creating a new vehicle class for tanks, I am not sure I can be done with the present vehicle system.

#3 You mean like this:
?
Just make the model and name the tires/wheels accordingly, then it should work... at least I didn't change any code to get that baby into the racing mod... ;)

#4 Does that have 8 hubs Stefan? Looks cool btw. I like some of those APC style vehicles. A realistic tank tread on a vehicle would be nice too.

#5 cool stephan, I tried copying the suspension and the wheels on the buggy and they didn't show up in the game. Not sure what I am doing wrong.

I'll keep trying.

-FD

#6 I think I've "stolen" this tank from T2 to check if it's working with Torque... if you want to give it a try yourself, get this - it's the DTS shapes, textures, some test-sounds and Torque-compatible scripts for a 4- and 8-wheeled tank...

#7 Excellent! Crush good.
Sorry, I think Melv got me all worked up about drinking again. Now I'm in a strange Friday mood. mmm..beer...drifting..huh, oh damn still at work.

#8 ok, dumb error on my part. It was the naming convention. I used max's convention 01, 02 etc.. when it should be 1, 2, ..

So in the racing mod you just need to copy the hub and spring dummyies, thats it, multiple wheels.

My next question however, how can you make invisible wheels?

-Frank D
http://www.frankdelise.com

#9 Open up the wheel shape, delete the mesh, and re-export it. The mesh won't show up in the game but the collision shape still exists.

You can see the wheel collison shape in the game then by typing:

$GameBase::boundingbox=true;

into the console. The red boxes on the end of the axles should be the collision shape of the invisible wheel.

#10 Played around a little more with getting a tank working.

It is an big hack, but it works. I exported the shape as a player.

We added a bit of code to conform it to the terrain, and the treads and wheels animate using the forward/back animation threads. The barrel elevates using the 'look' thread. No turret, but it is still fun to drive around.

Going to script up a weapon to work with it. Here is an image of the WIP.


Still exhibits some weird behavior. I will work on it when I get a few free hours.

#11 ......... I love you joe

#12 Great Joe! The turret may not work, but whats stopping it becoming a turretless self propelled gun? :)

#13 I have a weapon mounted on the end of the barrel. I made the tank really slow, and I set the reload to be 5 seconds. It feels very "tankish".

It is not perfect, but not bad. Perhaps in the future someone will take the time to make a working tank vehicle class.

#14 Hey Joe, did you have any luck making a tank class? Anyplans on releasing that to the communtiy? It looks like you have spent alot of work on itso far.

#15 Not yet. We are making tanks for the game we are working on (ThinkTanks). I will keep everyone updated on our progess.

#16 Hi I downloaded your tank file with the 8 wheels and was wondering how =
you exactly set it up in GameSpace ( assuming thats the program you used
). I'm trying to make a six wheeled vehicle and I've added 6 hub nodes =
in my scene file yet I'm only getting 4 wheels on my vehicle instead of =
6. If you could give me any insight into this problem I would greatly =
appreciate it.Thanks!

#17 I still haven't been able to add more than 4 wheels to my vehicle without cheating. I added a total of 6 hubs to my vehicle in GameSpace and when I export only 4 wheels show up.

#18 Is the download of the tank example in other url? (link broken), you can resubmit?
thanks.