Tread Animation-How did Firaxis do it?

[Acronym2]

Examining a few example units in MAX, I see that the treads of armored vehicle unit models do indeed appear to rotate during the "run" animation sequence.

Does anyone know how this is done? It does not seem to be a true movement of the tread, but something cosmetic to simulate a rotating tank tread.

 

[The_Coyote]

they 'animated' the texture, eg look at the vanilla tank at the NiTriShape Tread. In the NiTextureProperty you will see NiTextureTransformController. Such a controller is used to animated the texture (or better said, change the position of the UV on the texture)

In the run kf file search for nodes that affect the tread node (NiTextureTransformController or similar Controllers are refered by the mesh name), you will see two, (# 35 and #37). 35 changes the position while 37 does imo nothing here (the value is constant over the time)

 

[Acronym2]

Okay, it looked like the texture position was changing. So it should be simple to utilize this to animate tank tracks.