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A circular version of Newton's Cradle A variation on the unbalanced wheel perpetual motion machine

Yes. The null is in a null because the tank moves in -Z.

I put some steering in the tank and it kinda works - well, doesn't fall off the plane without the guide cube. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ui8v28s96mzpssa/tank-rigged_0001.c4d?dl=1 You can see the L-R speed correction in the user data. To go any faster you might need more torque - you could put all the motors in a linklist to fine tune it.

How is the tank moving ? Maybe I misunderstood your description of it being a dynamic tank - I assumed the tracks drive the tank. If so, the tracks should move correctly on the road. If the tracks are animated, that's just math. re : too slow in viewport - if the whole tank is dynamic and high poly, that's quite hard on the pc. You can use say a cube that is dynamic and reacts in real time with the tank body as a non dynamic child that just goes along for the ride. Need more info on the tank.

It's a method I use for dynamic cars. The steering comes from the h angle to target and the speed is range mapped to distance to target. For the tank it's speed 0 at distance 500, speed max at distance 1500, so the tank keeps up with the target following at around 1000. If the target speeds up the vehicle speeds up, if the target stops the car stops eg at a road junction. xp car.c4d

This might work for you. I've put a null in a GSG tank that points at a target on a spline. Distance to target controls speed and null local H is mapped to the motors for skid steering. I've put it on a tilted plane, and it works OK although the tank tread tends to slide off with too much steering 😀 gorilla tank2.c4d It's how you'd drive a car IRL - making constant adjustments to the steering.

Perspective is the key to this gadget. The parabolas are tilted slightly - this is from the side, but others are also tilted. To get the angle, I made an XPresso rig and eyeballed it. look through the camera in this scene and move the slider sq circle.c4d original -

You could add a clamp node to limit wheel lock. Since XP uses radians, something like +/- 0.7 (about 40 degree).

Here I put a null in the BMW body that points to a target on the spline that is ahead of the car. You can read the local H rot of the pointing null to get the wheel parent local H. car path xpresso rotation_0001.c4d

I saw this interesting desktop toy that is both a square and circle when you spin it. The splines are segments from a parabola y = x ^ 2

Here's your 1st lesson 😀 I made a python node and deleted the ports (by default they are reals and Python is quite fussy about data types) I made input and output ports data type string code to be executed goes under def main(): and is indented by 4 spaces the output variable is declared global so it can exist outside the main code body (where variables are local) the = sign works a bit different to regular math. The RHS is evaluated and assigned to the LHS variable - Output1 is 'given' that value zfill is a built in string command the = sign malarkey is interesting because you can have apparently nonsense Python code such as x = x + 1 which just increments x by 1

Assuming you're using Noseman's method of getting the text from the name, it's possible if you use python zfill and make the cloner editable - import c4d #Welcome to the world of Python def main(): global Output1 Output1 = Input1.zfill(3) zfill pads a string with zeros up to the max character count in brackets. zfill.c4d Noseman's method - Generating Number Sequences Using MoGraph in Cinema 4D - YouTube

Some ideas for you vis.c4d click in viewport or python execute to get new value. Note that random means the same index can come up twice in a row 😀 [ I got the cube syntax by dragging the field into the python window ]

Same scene with delay bounce 😀 Rectangle-Slices_0003.c4d

Here's a math method. I put a big delay in so you can see the effect - but it's adjustable. Rectangle-Slices_0002.c4d

Here's a python node I use a lot to control rotation - goes down to zero correctly. You can change the multiplier in line 13 for different speed range, and will reverse if the user data slider is from -100% to +100%. Can also be used for align to spline etc. python_speed.c4d

@3D-Pangel re historical figures - when I was counting pendulum swings trying to get the alignment correct, I felt more like Galileo counting the swinging chandeliers in church. Legend has it that he used his pulse to time them.

Bolts unscrewing in sequence. All params adjustable - time between bolts, unscrew speed etc bolts.c4d

It's just hinges - could do it in R14 😀

Previously I've dabbled with stepped pendulums, just affected by gravity, where the wire lengths increase in a linear manner - you can get nice sine wave type patterns eg here. I once saw a guy on TV - Stephen Fry - with a multi pendulum model doing just this, and he casually made a throwaway remark 'of course if you let it run long enough, the pendulums return to their original start positions' ie in a straight line. I thought 'that can't be true'. I tried (in C4D) all combinations of wire lengths and increments, but all I got was straight line start > sine waves > chaotic movement I once let a sim run for about 75,000F - but just got chaos and no alignment. Then I saw some math online that explained the align trick... I chose a time period for alignment - 20 sec Using the standard pendulum formula, I calculated the wire length to make the longest pendulum do 18 complete swings (period - T) in 20 secs I set the length of the next (shorter) pendulum to do 19T in 20 secs then the next pendulum to do 20T in 20 secs next 21T in 20 secs etc up to 27T in 20 sec for the 10th pendulum In theory, the pendulums should align every 20 sec. I set it running and the alignment was close, but not good enough. The problem was that the simple pendulum formula only works for small angles - it uses the approximation (in radians) of sin(x) = x which falls down over about 10 degrees. The math for large angles is quite complex - I decided to manually tweak my computed values until the weights lined up. So the final result was down to a mixture of python and intuition/guesswork. Works quite well. the pendulums line up every 20s - blink and you'll miss it

You can delay the start by subtracting a value from time and clamping it to zero. Here it starts at 60F - delay start.c4d BTW I'm not a big fan of 'tutorials' that have no explanation and no sound.

I think exploded view of engines etc that recombine is a case for mograph. Try asking in that section. I'm not much of an expert with effectors and such.

Sure - give me more info and I'll have a look at it.

What sort of action are you wanting to perform ? You could compare the index to current frame eg here the bolts move 10 in Y in sequence y jump.c4d Might be a job for mograph + effector.

One effector here typewriter.c4d