XSI ICE beatiful Tank rigg

[blackchicken]

Hello

I saw this cool rigg, so question for RBD masters there, how will you solve this in houdini? It is possible playing with model realtime like in this video? Specialy look at the wheels, no penetration, ewerything looks clean. Use ODE objects or what do you thing?

[J.Santos]

nice riggs...

[King Kirby]

Similar: Jason Simmons Mars Rover rig.

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1693&Itemid=68

[old school]

Indeed it looks like a nice rig but I see a couple issues.

First the tracks slip on the surface. If it wasn't for the orange colored tracks you'd never tell as the playback is kind of slow.

Second the tracks do tunnel around the ramp somewhat.

Now I don't see any nice track stretch or snap as the tank stops abruptly or starts up quickly or other subtle dynamic effects that a real tank has such as an auto-adjusting turret and gun barrel.

Abrams tanks are also known for their suspension ability to seemingly swallow boulders and potholes on the road. That would be a great test to try out on any Abrams tank rig.

Since this tank isn't smashing in to anything, you could rig this up in CHOPs (Motion Effects). There are quite a few tools to add dynamics to channels. Couple that with either Ray SOPs or VEX SOPs implementing more feature full ray intersection tests and you could do it without a reliance on RBD. Obviously use the Time Slice feature in CHOPs to only evaluate the frames to solve the current frame. There is also some proto_install tools to support some older joysticks like the sidewinder CHOP. Midi CHOP in still works well so you could control the tank with any midi device.

On top of that, CHOPs as of H10.0.390? has some new CHOPs added. There is the ForEach CHOP. Combine the ForEach CHOP with the Feedback CHOP and you can do avoidance and target acquisition as well. There is also the new IKSolver CHOP that allows you to solve kinematics on any input positions/rotates so even that is now opened up. For the old school Houdini and PRISMS users out there, the new IKSolver CHOP gives you similar features to the old Limb SOP.

As for using RBD (ODE in this case), Houdini doesn't have the full complement of ODE constraints currently implemented. I believe Soft uses ODE so they may have a few more constraints readily available making the task of rigging RBD with ODE a little less difficult over there.

Please feel free to submit the RFE in to Support for the full complement of ODE constraints to be implemented.

Anyhow an RBD solution will vary greatly if the scene scale is changed markedly. That is why it's my gut instinct to go with CHOPs as it would be easier to dial in and in the end may prove to be more directable.

Finally check out the Technical rigging tuts from 3D Buzz. The Technical Rigging volume V is right up this alley.

http://www.3dbuzz.com/xcart/product.php?productid=68&cat=11&page=1

[blackchicken]

Thanks a lot for your repply, RBD looks like not so much controlable but in fast movement threw dunes or some hard terrain could be wery interesting. But of course for full controul Ill use standart rigg with controls like in 3Dbuzz (of course I have it ,whole series, Im not rigger bud i love extreme hardsurface models and 6 wheels rigg exactly fitting terrain, no words,this DVD must be standart equipment ). I do some rigg in maya on my T-55 model, I trying a lot of posibilities but best way was: create circle, some script for copying tracks on circle, add lattice for curve and deform for fit wheels, then You can rotate curves which is deforming, all CV on curve has clusters which can be hand animated, suspension of all wheels were linked automaticaly to this clustrrs so if I go threw some bulge I animate only suspensions (time consuming, Im not animator hehe) and tracks automaticaly move with wheels,wheels ofcourse has scripted rotation depending on distance of moving and this were linked on rotation of circle in lattice. Of course some limited banking in X and Z of body and rotation torret with blowback of canon. Relatively easy rigg. Now in houdini with chop's, suspensions fit terrain, will be extreamely brutal rigg, some complex fluid simulation cached on disc were loaded after shot, knocking tracks after firs wheel in fast movement and lot of cool features. Is there somebody, who do some cool rigg, tank or something similiar? show us your setup. I have video from CMIvfx about tank modeling where is projecting curves onto surface and this way is created trucks. I dont like so much this methode, becouse i like when trucks is all same, no deformation, top and bottom is different, so be careful for clipping trucks and of course whole curve must have still same lenght becouse of trucks. So projecting is still rebuilding curve and lengt is little changing.

There is my old model:

and video where is some rigg overview it is in last 3 stage at the end(sorry it is in the czech)

http://www.duber.tv/cs/maya/modelovani/modelovani-stolicky-cast-3/

and test animation sorry for the render, it is really old, rather animation test of rigg, then photoreal rendering

http://blackchicken.webzdarma.cz/ani/T-55.avi

By the way, This rigg created by Rich Hurrey, Michael Blackbourn and John Moores using MODO really cool work

animation:

rigg overview: http://content5.luxology.com/modo/401/video/animation_4/rich_hurrey_PantherRigOverview.mov

So what do you thing?

With chops and 3Dbuzz setup could be really f... cool rigg hope Ill some day rebuild all in houdini and hope one day Ill dispoze so wide knowledge about houdini like you OLD SHOOL, thanks a lot for your tutorials, realy interesting and cleaver solutions for differents situations

So if there is some cool rigs of intersting vehicles, put it there, I'm very interested in.....BC....

Edited May 5, 2010 by blackchicken