[HorseAss]

How can you animate the tank tracks?

[Pestilence]

The tank tracks are placed by the game engine according to the relative location of a bone or a pair of bones called, TREADFX01,02 so on. just create a small 4 sement sphere and place it under the tracks of the tank or wheels on other vehicles, and name them accordingly. if you are replacing a unit with a custom model this is all. But if you are creating a new unit, make sure the copied lines of code that you may have used as a reference to edit, has references to these treadfxs and has not been changed or deleted. that should be it, hope it helps.

[Eradicator]

I think he meant animating the tracks on the tank so they move when the tank moves. This i'm not sure about.

[Pestilence]

thats exactly what i explained does, Generals is scripted to do just that via the markers "TREADFX" bones.

[killakanz]

No they dont.

TreadFX bones just kick up dust and leave treadmarks on the ground. They dont animate the treads moving.

Animating treads isn't really a animation job, more of how their texture is applied. In RenX's Renegade material editor, go to the Vertex material tab (in Pass 1) and under "Stage 0 Mapping" drop down the box and select Linear Offset. Then type 'VPerSec= 1' into the Args box below it.
If the treads move sideways, try UPerSec= 1. If the treads are going backwards, use -1.
With this, and with the correct names for the tread meshes, the game should recognise they are treads and takes over from there.

[sage_inferno]

Originally Posted by killakanz

No they dont.

TreadFX bones just kick up dust and leave treadmarks on the ground. They dont animate the treads moving.

Animating treads isn't really a animation job, more of how their texture is applied. In RenX's Renegade material editor, go to the Vertex material tab (in Pass 1) and under "Stage 0 Mapping" drop down the box and select Linear Offset. Then type 'VPerSec= 1' into the Args box below it.
If the treads move sideways, try UPerSec= 1. If the treads are going backwards, use -1.
With this, and with the correct names for the tread meshes, the game should recognise they are treads and takes over from there.

correction UPerSec=0.1

[killakanz]

0.1?

Well, I'm not sure now, I usually dont bother cos I usually dont skin them anymore :P