Training Stream - Tank Vehicle - March 17th, 2015

WHAT
Developer Relations Technical Artist walks us through the creation of a fully functional tank! Learn about setting up a drivable vehicle with working treads, ground collision, a firing cannon, and more!

[SHOT]

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WHEN
Tuesday, March 17th @ 3:30PM-5:00PM ET - Countdown]

WHERE
www.twitch.tv/unrealengine

WHO

  • Developer Relations Technical Artist

Feel free to ask any questions on the topic in the thread below, and remember, while we try to give attention to all inquiries, it’s not always possible to answer everyone’s questions as they come up. This is especially true for off-topic requests, as it’s rather likely that we don’t have the appropriate person around to answer. Thanks for understanding!

Edit: The YouTube archive is up here.

looks like one I will be watching:)

is the plan to add the “is tank” option to the vehicle system still happening?

What sections of creating the tank will this cover?
Modeling/texturing? functionality etc?

There’s not a lot to the texturing and modeling, but I will touch on setting the elements up for export if you like, followed how it is snapped together in UE4.

Hey,

Got a question / Request -

Would it be possible to cover the set up of a coaxial Machine gun on the tank that can only damage certain targets? (Example: Infantry but not other tanks.)

Just curious,
HeadClot

Sure! I’ve just gone ahead and added those features ready for tomorrow.

You just made what is left of my day. :smiley:

Thank you,
HeadClot

hey all, n 'ello to aka ‘Tank Guy’

asked a question about vehicle AI movement last week but they ran out of time, so…
(although I know you don’t have time to come up with anything, maybe you can give some ideas or even add something to this project later)

[Question] How would one handle a Tracking - Pursuit AI that could follow a none straight path like in MoveTo , possibly following a spline etc. as in a road or around obstacles?

understand if you don’t have time to come up with something but very interested and wanted to ask. thank you TankGuy and we’ve enjoyed your demos just hope we can see this one a bit better :slight_smile:

thanks, ayretek
(will shorten later to ‘Tank’ if ya want, as time passes lol)(might be a lot cooler name)

i really wished you had used a skeletal mesh which is more like what people will use in games in stead of a few statics
i watched the gdc version and i couldn’t get the turret to work at all

maybe next time

actually I sort of was wondering about the same thing, geodav

like when setting up vehicles the skeletal mesh allows for reaction to the environment similar to the wheeled vehicle examples. ie: tank treads that react like they have suspension like in real conditions.

of course, he is a technical artist, maybe we should cut him some slack but I’m still gonna eat up this training stream, good stuff

ps: will you be streaming after this event, Geodav? and would appreciate seeing your twitch stream link more often. lol :wink:
(maybe put it in your sig on forums)

I’ll be happy to speak to that during the stream and offer some pointers. At some point I do want to do a skeletal version.

I think I’m abit late, but if it’s in the scope of this topic would it be possible for this to be a vehicle that the 3rd person perspective can enter and exit? (much like a UT game)
And if so would it be possible to have a total of 3 seats, 1 for gunner driver, 1 for small top gun, and 1 out side the tank like mount? As said above that might be easier with a skeletal version.

Nice, but please next time make something useful (Actual treads + wheels with physics like the vehicle example (Physics in the key wheels)) Better and more examples/tutorials/demos about characters/vehicles - Feedback for Unreal Engine team - Unreal Engine Forums.

*Please make the videos in 1080p

maybe I should have elaborated a bit more:p, a while ago someone (I think it might of been ori) said there was plans to add an “is tank” option to the wheeled vehicle BP, I think it was to allow the vehicle to turn on the spot while having the wheels move correctly in relation to the ground and tank body, I was just wondering if that was still planned?

after watching the stream I have a few more quick questions,

1: if you were going to make a tank using a skeletal mesh what BP parent(pawn/vehicle…) would you use?

2: if you made a tank with wheels+tracks how would you handle turning(in particular while stationary) and keeping the wheels movement correct in relation to the ground and tanks body?, you showed how you did the material and I already worked out a way to make the tracks move up/down with the wheels and bend but I’m just curious how you would handle the wheels.

also I want to play with it:)

Is there anywhere we can ascertain the static mesh’s? I have no idea how to use 3DS Max

,
thanks for the nice tutorial, I was really looking into ways to import vehicles using simple static meshes and animating them in code.

Correct positioning of the meshes in unreal is key to this process and I see you smartly used sockets.

I have one question about it, how do you actually create and export sockets from a 3d application in a static mesh (non skeletal) ? I know you used Max but would like to have an answer also regarding Blender or Maya

thanks !
Fred

you only create the static meshes in a 3D app and then you add the sockets to the meshes in UE4.

I checked the video again and you are right, this is what says, but exact positioning of sockets is kind of complex… I was wondering if there was a way to do this in the 3d application

The best solution I found would be to write down the relative positions and reposition sockets manually… or alternatively use Empties but I have to check if they get imported

I wrote a PhysX tank simulation addition to the vehicle system and made a pull request that as far as I was told will be added into the engine later.
Meanwhile you can get it from here