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I have a tank-track like-design, that I want to follow a curve.

But since the track-pieces themselves will not bend in real life, I don't want my render to bend.

No subdivision is applied, the edge-marks were just to test if that would work. It had no affect.

enter image description here

Regular Jo
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1 Answers1

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What you want is duplication along a curve without deformation. Since 2.8 you can't use Dupliframes anymore, but you can do it this way:

Create a plane as long as your object, give it an Array and a Curve modifier so that it follows a curve:

enter image description here

Keep your plane selected, open the Object panel and under Instancing, enable Faces:

enter image description here

Parent your object to the plane, it won't deform even though it is subdivided:

enter image description here

Note: Maybe you'll need to set your curve to Shape > Twist Method > Z-Up

moonboots
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  • I found another answer elsewhere that helped a bit, and this cemented it, thank you! For anyone who might have an issue, make sure your objects rotation and scale are applied. Also, this may need you to change your array modifier's axis. – Regular Jo Aug 15 '21 at 15:47
  • Is there a way to do this and discard the plane mesh data on export so you just get a single mesh of the non-deformed objects? – Adam Aug 24 '22 at 18:39
  • @Adam apply the modifiers of the plane, for the cuboid object press Ctrl A > Make Instances Real, the instances are still linked, to unlink select them all and go into the header menu > Object > Relations > Make SIngle User > Object & Data. – moonboots Aug 24 '22 at 19:18
  • @moonboots Hey thanks, this is exactly what I wanted! – Adam Sep 01 '22 at 17:15