How to Animate tank tracks in Blender for Unreal

I keep getting confused by steps 6-8 as i keep getting confused with what mode to be in and im also confused by the “ORG Bones” and the regular bones, I can’t seem to be able to get it to look like you’ve got it step 8’s picture.

OK, I changed what the bones look like in blender. Are the black poles confusing you? Are you getting bone shapes like the armature that you created? That triangle shape with the balls on each end? You can change that in the Data tab of the Properties panel under Display. I have mine set to Stick. It is just a personal preference thing. As for the “ORG Bones” I do not know what the ORG stands for. If you really want to know you can probably find a definition in the Blender manual. I think it is basically saying that this is a skeleton bone not a armature bone. Unreal needs a skeleton bone. Sorry my steps were not that easy to follow, i’m still learning myself. Again, if this does not help or you have more questions, just ask.

Gurthang325

Sorry for late replies and your fine at least your helping others would just tell me to google it XD. What i meant was in step 8’s photo you actaully have selected a bone in pose mode in the 3d view to the left and it shows on the right that that bone is called ORG Bone while when i do this its only called Bone. Maybe theirs a step i screwed up on.

Lol. So you are saying that your bone objects are just called “Bone”? I just checked, it does not mater if you are in Pose Mode vs Edit Mode. I thought that would be the problem, but I guess it is not. Do you happen to remember if you changed any of the settings when you were trying to figure this out on your own? That might be the problem. What computer operating system are you using? I am on windows 10. It sounds a little weird but if you are on a different operating system it might change the names of the bones. Not likely though. Also, when you generate a rig, it leaves the old bones behind and makes a new object. You might have not selected that new object. That could be the problem. Have you checked to see if there is some problem somewhere other than that? If not, I hopefully will not change anything. If you can see no problems other than the bone names, I would just continue on with the rigging.

Plz, don’t hesitate to ask more questions!
Gurthang325

Hi this is not an answer just a follow up. The initial question is the exact same problem i had. in my practicing in this procedure i could not complete step number 7 I cannot find any location or rotation locks. I am stuck on what to do next

Hi ElectricSock03. First, I made this guide in an older version of Blender. I think they moved the lactation of the transform locks in new versions. I looked and I think the locks that I was referring to in the guide are in “Item” now instead of “View”. Hope this helps!

It did i am just hoping i did it right. I’ve been following the one blender file the best i can. one thing i cannot find is your Root bone? On mine i am able to select it and its highlighted. at least i think i did mine right?

I think you did it right. I can’t really remember what I did or why I did it. The think the main point is to have a bone for every track and have them all parented to one bone in instead of chained like an character arm would be. Good luck!

Hello,
I followed the guide, but i am stuck at step 6.
when I look into the object parameters, there is neither a parent, that I can delete, nor is there a root bone that i can choose from.
What did I do wrong?

Ok, so you can’t find a root bone? It has been a while since I first answered the question so I might be mixed up but I think the idea of a root bone is so that the track bones are all on the same level in the hierarchy, so when you move one, it does not affect the others. That is the point of having them all parented to the root bone. I don’t know why you don’t have a root bone. I am not very familiar with the newer versions of blender so maybe something changed. Have you done step 5, and are you trying to reparent the bones on the skeleton? I’m not sure but there might be a difference between an armature and a skeleton in this case. Anyway, I think you can fix this by making a new bone to parent all the other bones to. Call it “root” to to keep it simple, and make sure it is the top bone in the chain, so when it moves, everything moves, and when everything else moves, it doesn’t. The way this system works is that the track bones are not connected at the joints so that they can move freely, so you need them parented to something and not each other so that you can move then individually. Btw, the tracks look great! Hope this helps!

Hey Gurrzy,

thanks for explanation. I got my rig now for both sides of my robot (left and right track).
Isn’t it also possible to export my robot and animate it in unreal editor? Just because, I need to synchronate it to my drive wheel as you can see on my screenshot.

At least one more question. Are you confirm on auto rig pro? Am I allowed to delete c_pos and c_traj bones?