Duplicate along curve problem

[rick_engelenburg]

Hey guys!

Beginner question here! I have a question about my tank tracks im am trying to make. I see ALOT of tutorials about how to make tank tracks but none seem to discuss my problem. In the tutorials they all copy perfectly along the curve but with me it doesn't. I have a image attached to show you my problem. 

In the beginning and at the end the copy's are really close to each other while in the middle the tracks are more apart. I just need them to be evenly spaced apart. Can anyone tell me where I can fix this? Its probably some box I need to uncheck but I dont know where 😛

Thanks!

Rick

[ctfan5]

This looks very similar to animating on a motion path. You could try motion paths and create animation snapshot under animation.

Here is the link which explains how it's done. 😃

http://simplymaya.com/forum/showthread.php?p=356388

[rick_engelenburg]

Thanks for your reply!

I have indeed did it that way. But then I get the problem I discribed. I attached another image as example. The bottom track I made with just duplicate special in the x axis. The top track made with the animation snapshot. You can see that the spacing between each track part is not consistent while in the tutorial you linked me it, the chains are evenly spaced. 

[ctfan5]

The guy in the tutorial mentioned that for this to work,there would be trial and error. When i tried this method previously,i did encounter your problem as well. From there,it was just a matter of deleting excess and shifting the meshes manually.Cause by looking at the image you sent, the right ones seem to all be in the right position so all you have to do would be to delete the extras.

[_sebastian_f · Accepted solution]

with motion path there is no need for trial and error. at least not when it comes to spacing. just set the anim curve to linear. another thing to do before is maybe to rebuilt the curve to parameter range frome 0-1. you can also measure the curve and your objects and calculate how many duplicates you need and set the time range for the motion path accordingly.