Animating a mechanical Arm

[Chris]

he he, you should be saying 'is this possible with IK or do I have to use bones" :)

You dont want your mesh to deform, so you dont need to skin it to some bones.
You could attach the mesh to some bones, but as anything in Max can be bones - just do away with them altogether, it will make your scene simpler.

You just move the pivot points of the objects to where they should pivot from, then just link the 'forearm' to the 'bicep'. That should animate fine if its simple! You could add IK as well if you want to do some more complex animation... :)

[Animare]

Cool man! thanks, yeah you're right I don't want them to deform, I might have to hit the books for a simple IK setup or as you say just put the co-ordinates in the correct position.

Thanks alot!

[Chris]

Heres a super simple IK setup to get you started.

Create your 'Bicep'
Create your 'Forearm'
Create a pointhelper object at the 'wrist'

go to the 'heirarchy' tab & select 'affect pivot only'
move the pivot pints to where the limbs should pivot (bicep & forearm)
select the bicep
go to Animation->IK Solvers->HI solver
move the cursor over the pointhelper & click.

Thats it! Now you can move the "IK Chain 01" to move your arm around. You can turn IK on or off in the 'motion' tab.

if you select the 'IK Chain01' object (it should be a blue cross) & turn on your maniplulators, you can see the 'swivel angle' manipulator. Rotate this to define the direction the 'elbow' should be facing

Good Luck! :)

[Animare]

Thanks for that extra effort man appreciate it, thats perfect! Thats exactly what I needed

Thanks!

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