Alternative approach to path construction

Andrew Williamshttp://www.bolton.ac.uk/staff/adw1

First construct your track

Next, add a car

It does not matter where it goes - but I would put it on the yellow lines

Now, add a rock

Make sure the car is selected before you add the rock.(So that the rock sits in the same position)

Then, clone your rock

Now there are two rocks

I have moved the new rock forwards

Now clone this second rock

IMPORTANT

You MUST NOT use Clone Insert

Here’s my new rock

Again, I’ve moved it forward a bit and placed it on the yellow line

Here’s one I prepared earlier …

Notes

• They don’t need to be rocks specifically– Any object with geometry and a location will do

• They don’t need to be evenly spaced• One rock must be able to “see” (ie draw an

unobstructed straight line) to its neighbour• The rocks are in order– Hence Clone and not Clone Insert

Now open the properties for the first rock and open up Notepad

Look at the X,Y,Z location in the property window

This bit

What is a path?

• A path is simply a series of locations around the track.– Normally you record the path yourself by driving

round the track– We are going to use the locations of the rocks

• We don’t actually need the middle number– That represents the height above the track but we

want the path on the track, so we enter 0 for that

The three numbers

• We don’t need to include all those decimal places either

• I would suggest that this location can be adequately represented by 0, 0, -4

Enter those numbers in Notepad

Now select the next rock and repeat

That looks like 14, 0, 43 to me

Then grab the next rock

And the next …

Etc

Eventually…

We have created trail of breadcrumbs

Add a path and delete the default nodes (ie on the right-hand side)

Copy-and-paste the stuff from Notepad into that box

Add the other bits and pieces

And the car follows the path

Easy question: Why doesn’t it crash into the rocks?