Messiah to animate mechanical stuff?

[3DDave]

Yes, but I don't know of any tutorials. I used it for a cam and valve setup once.

[Suricate]

hi assistant pimp,

certainly you can do mechanical animations. You can either :
a) have each part of your model as a separate object and animate those objects or
b) have all of the parts of your object in one single mesh and control them by bones; then you have to use metaeffectors with the weight mode set to 'All Connected' so that every bone influences only one part.

[assistant pimp]

Thanks Suricate

In your opinion what is the best method for animating electronics (like a robot arm). To do it as one mesh or to break up the objects? I am just getting the hang of modellin in LW but no experience in animation. Messiah will be my first try at it.

[Suricate]

I'd suggest having one mesh in one layer and then using bones with metaeffectors. This takes a little bit longer to setup, but should be much easier to manage than having multiple objects, especially if you later on want to render out the animation in LW.

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