Triangluar vehicles that walk...
The whole concept of that blows my mind..
Each time a leg is lifted the 2 other legs support all the weight while the 3d moves.
Only way to make it functional would be having the rear leg as a wheel or a skid as Argh said.
A unit like that is either gonna wobble like mad, be really slow, unstable as hell, or all of the above.
BIpeds and Quadrapeds are the best way to go for having units with walking legs.
If the majority of the weight was centered between the front two legs, it might be possible, you just gotta think about these things from a realistic perspective.
Skeletal unit resource pool (GPL)
Moderators: MR.D, Moderators
Ah I see, I'm downloading Nano Blobs now.
Thanks for the input, I'll modify the rear leg to make more sense now...
I'm also working on a second possible entry, which I have no idea what it's going to evolve into. But it will be a strange spider type object, and I have no bloody idea how it can possibly be coded into TA Spring. (I can't pretend to have any idea in coding ANYTHING, since I am primarily a Photoshop/3DS Max person.)
Thanks for the input, I'll modify the rear leg to make more sense now...
I'm also working on a second possible entry, which I have no idea what it's going to evolve into. But it will be a strange spider type object, and I have no bloody idea how it can possibly be coded into TA Spring. (I can't pretend to have any idea in coding ANYTHING, since I am primarily a Photoshop/3DS Max person.)
The main problem with tripods is that they will invariably have twisting forces applied during thrust phases of the feet. One good way to deal with this would be to have the body simply twist with the natural pattern of the legs, producing a rotary motion that made some physical sense, but it'd be hard to pull off, because of depicting the complex forces that would be involved. To a viewer, the legs and body would seem to whirl around, but the legs traveling backwards and forwards would need to be in the air. The real problem with this design would be steering and handling the centrifugal forces involved- thankfully, this is just a video game, so we can assume that they have awesome gyros or whatever 
A hopping tripod, on the kangaroo model, is quite practical, however. The third leg just serves as a balancing device and support.
I think that about 99% of the problem is that people assume that 2 legs must be on the ground at once. This simply defies actual observations. When DRB and I made the original animations for NanoBlobs, we looked at real-world walk cycles for things like dogs and horses, and found that most animals have cyclic patterns to their movements- instead of just having one leg down, or two, they tend to have one-two-three or other patterns. Studying that lead me to the idea of detuned walk cycles via scripting, and with zswyg's additional assistance, I have improved the process greatly, I think. Personally, I think I have the most believable animations in Spring right now, other than AATA's human walk cycles, which are ok, if a bit robotic- look closely at any other mod, and you will see a lot of skating, and a lot've portions where legs should actually be lifting and bending at knee joints, but are simply being straightened and rapidly moved forwards. People don't pay a lot of attention to these things, because quite frankly, people are used to crappy walk cycles in video games, and rarely look critically at them unless the subjects are people or horses
In short, there are 1-leg variations that are stable during motion, just like a human's complex falling-constantly-forward walk is, but would be equally unstable if they were subject to a sudden halt- think how much force you have to apply to yourself when you suddenly stop from a full-speed walk. With three-leg solutions, it's much harder because of the twisting, which is why, I think, that Nature has not ever selected any such designs- the tradeoffs almost certainly outweighed the real advantages.
A hopping tripod, on the kangaroo model, is quite practical, however. The third leg just serves as a balancing device and support.
I think that about 99% of the problem is that people assume that 2 legs must be on the ground at once. This simply defies actual observations. When DRB and I made the original animations for NanoBlobs, we looked at real-world walk cycles for things like dogs and horses, and found that most animals have cyclic patterns to their movements- instead of just having one leg down, or two, they tend to have one-two-three or other patterns. Studying that lead me to the idea of detuned walk cycles via scripting, and with zswyg's additional assistance, I have improved the process greatly, I think. Personally, I think I have the most believable animations in Spring right now, other than AATA's human walk cycles, which are ok, if a bit robotic- look closely at any other mod, and you will see a lot of skating, and a lot've portions where legs should actually be lifting and bending at knee joints, but are simply being straightened and rapidly moved forwards. People don't pay a lot of attention to these things, because quite frankly, people are used to crappy walk cycles in video games, and rarely look critically at them unless the subjects are people or horses
In short, there are 1-leg variations that are stable during motion, just like a human's complex falling-constantly-forward walk is, but would be equally unstable if they were subject to a sudden halt- think how much force you have to apply to yourself when you suddenly stop from a full-speed walk. With three-leg solutions, it's much harder because of the twisting, which is why, I think, that Nature has not ever selected any such designs- the tradeoffs almost certainly outweighed the real advantages.
Ever seen a dog run? A wolf perhaps? 2 feet in the air and 2 on ground right? Well, an animal with three legs runs the exact same! A person I know has a cat with three legs, it moves the same, but instead of its front two legs, only its front one! It compensates by moving its leg to the middle.
If someone is making a triped, then they need it to have a body that is worth the movement, and the exact and correct way to do it.. It sounds hard, but it has to have a loping run, not a walking movement like a spider, but a lope. The only way to make it look real...
Edit: As a matter of fact, I am going model one, sounds pretty cool to me..
If someone is making a triped, then they need it to have a body that is worth the movement, and the exact and correct way to do it.. It sounds hard, but it has to have a loping run, not a walking movement like a spider, but a lope. The only way to make it look real...
Edit: As a matter of fact, I am going model one, sounds pretty cool to me..
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Runecrafter
- Posts: 148
- Joined: 30 Oct 2005, 00:23
Here is a model I made a bit ago. It is 656 polygons, not sure about triangles, never work with them, I only make models in quads.
Last edited by Runecrafter on 30 Oct 2006, 03:11, edited 2 times in total.
