"Bridgeofstraws" <bri### [at] inboxcom> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I came a across this website while randomly googling:
> http://www.donzoptix.co.uk/FUNMOVIES/Funmovies.html
> and discovered that one of the videos (roughly half-way down the page) on this
> site showed a tank that followed the terrain and left tracks.  Now I might be
> mistaken but I think the video was generated in POV-Ray.  I was wondering if
> anyone here knows how this might have been accomplished.  I don't intend on
> implementing this in POV-Ray currently; I just found it interesting.
> Thank you.

Actually, the description on that page says it all:

- the X/Z position and overall heading of the tank was probably fixed beforehand

- for every frame, the trace() function was probably used to get samples of the
terrain's height where the tank should be (maybe one per each of the tank's
running wheels?)

- the tank's orientation would be tweaked accordingly, and maybe the running
wheels' position and running track geometry as well

- the tracks left behind would then be generated by difference-ing the height
field with some boxes placed according to the trace() results.

- for efficiency, the trace() results to generate the track-making boxes from
might have been written to a file and retrieved during the next frame

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