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I recently decided to get off my butt and build a working aircraft (I have previously built lots scenery objects (including aircraft) in GMAX and Blender) and things have been going well until I hit an issue with animations. Obviously animations are new to me but I have lost over a week now going through numerous tutorials for both simple animation and bone animation and I still cannot get it to work in my project. It's now got to the point where I am so confused I hardly know my left hand from my right and nothing I try gives me the results I am trying to achieve. I think part of my problem lies in the fact that some parts are aligned to the world axis and some are aligned to their 'local' axes and the two things are not playing nicely together.
I have attached a couple of screens below to try and show my problem....
SHAFT_A is the main drive shaft for the gear and is aligned parallel to the world axis. It is attached to LINK_A and LINK_A can swivel on the end of the shaft.
LINK_A is connected to SHAFT_A and LINK_B via JOINT_A. The joint connection needs to be constrained so that it can only rotate in one plane (not on the world axis) but it also needs to be able to move along the radial track created by the end of LINK_A when SHAFT_A rotates.
LINK_B is connected to LINK_A via JOINT_A and also connected at the other end to the gear leg. It also rotates at the point where it is connected to the gear leg.
The gear leg (and all parts linked to it) rotate on SHAFT_B which is not aligned on the world axis but on it's own local axis.
The problem I have is that I cannot find a way of successfully tying the two link arms together at JOINT_A. If I rotate SHAFT_A then LINK_A rotates with it correctly. If I rotate SHAFT_B the gear leg (and everything linked to it including LINK_B) rotate correctly. What I need is to be able to rotate SHAFT_A and have the LINK_A, JOINT_A and LINK_B assembly work in unison to pull up the gear leg and make it rotate on SHAFT_B. The assembly should work much like the hinge on a folding pocket knife where the handle would be LINK_A (fixed at one end to SHAFT_A) and the blade would be LINK_B with the blade tip attached to the gear leg.
As I stated earlier I have tried using simple animation with dummies (although all the constraints and 'look to' features have me totally confused now) and tried a bone animation on the link assembly but that didn't work either.
Can anyone see what I am doing wrong and perhaps suggest a way of achieving my goal as at this point I am totally confused and ready to tear my hair out after spending a full week or more on this problem and getting nowhere.
Thanks for looking.
I have attached a couple of screens below to try and show my problem....
SHAFT_A is the main drive shaft for the gear and is aligned parallel to the world axis. It is attached to LINK_A and LINK_A can swivel on the end of the shaft.
LINK_A is connected to SHAFT_A and LINK_B via JOINT_A. The joint connection needs to be constrained so that it can only rotate in one plane (not on the world axis) but it also needs to be able to move along the radial track created by the end of LINK_A when SHAFT_A rotates.
LINK_B is connected to LINK_A via JOINT_A and also connected at the other end to the gear leg. It also rotates at the point where it is connected to the gear leg.
The gear leg (and all parts linked to it) rotate on SHAFT_B which is not aligned on the world axis but on it's own local axis.
The problem I have is that I cannot find a way of successfully tying the two link arms together at JOINT_A. If I rotate SHAFT_A then LINK_A rotates with it correctly. If I rotate SHAFT_B the gear leg (and everything linked to it including LINK_B) rotate correctly. What I need is to be able to rotate SHAFT_A and have the LINK_A, JOINT_A and LINK_B assembly work in unison to pull up the gear leg and make it rotate on SHAFT_B. The assembly should work much like the hinge on a folding pocket knife where the handle would be LINK_A (fixed at one end to SHAFT_A) and the blade would be LINK_B with the blade tip attached to the gear leg.
As I stated earlier I have tried using simple animation with dummies (although all the constraints and 'look to' features have me totally confused now) and tried a bone animation on the link assembly but that didn't work either.
Can anyone see what I am doing wrong and perhaps suggest a way of achieving my goal as at this point I am totally confused and ready to tear my hair out after spending a full week or more on this problem and getting nowhere.
Thanks for looking.