PDA

View Full Version : Landing gear with pistons....

Antilles
03-17-2002, 02:54 PM
Hello, im getting pretty familiar with Max 4 and ive created a star ship with it. On the bottom of this starship are three landing gear bays. Each one has a door that i want to open, and then the landing gear themselves will slide down out of the bay.

My question involves animating some pistons or rotating bars that are connected to the ends of the bay doors. This is fairly difficult to explain, but very easy to visualize! Imagine these pistons to be a leg made up of two bars that connect at the 'knee'. The bottom of the bars, the foot, is connected to the door itself at the end. The top, or hip, is connected to the interior of the bay. When the door is closed, the leg is bent completely, and when i rotate the doors open, the leg should simply unfold, got it? So, when i animate this thing to land, Ill just rotate the door open, and the bars should unfold, and to the viewer it looks like these bars are rotating and pushing the door open. So how would i go about making this thing work? Any help would be great, and if you dont fully understand, just ask me to clarify in any way. Thanks a lot!:)

of course pictures are great for understanding the problem
http://brianwebb1.tripod.com/landinggear.jpg
(tripod wont allow image posting on other sites :( )
Ls3D
03-18-2002, 03:02 AM
Sorry a cute blonde :eek: girl just came over, so I have to give an extremely short answer.

IK

-Shea

P.S. Upload small pic, link is to host logo.
Antilles
03-18-2002, 03:08 AM
wonderful, i already knew it had something to do with IK. Its the execution im clueless about.
Ls3D
03-18-2002, 03:23 AM
OK, while the Babe :rolleyes: rotates her blade wheels,..
Hopefully someone else will pitch in!

Experiment with linking the bottom of the arm to the next articulated part, working up the chain, modifying pivots, etc..

If you just want to animate the door and have the arms work, then you will need to attach the hierarchy to the door in some way,.. This looks easy in max 4, what version are you running?

Zip up a tiny sample file and create a link to it so that someone can help you further. Goodluck Daylight is burnin!

-Shea
www.Ls3D.com
Antilles
03-18-2002, 03:34 AM
im using max 4.0, and yes it does look easy, but its not....I've experimented already, but i really dont know how to get the bottom arm to connect to the door or the top arm to connect to the bay. If all else fails, ill have to resort to just making pistons that slide out of each other, but even that demands some answers here. Thanks for helping btw, and yes i hope someone else does pitch in, i know there are brilliant people here who have done this many times.
Ls3D
03-18-2002, 09:52 PM
Linked Xform would allow you to attach to a vertex or vert select, but there may be a cleaner way in max 4?

I would perhaps add some non face verts to the area you want the attach, position a dummy there and use linked xform to lock the dummy to the verts. Then link the dummies to the ends of the IK chain, or something like that,...

Maybe delete this thread and restart a new thread called 'Need IK Help in max 4' to generate more assistance. Caio!

-Shea
www.Ls3D.com
skunk184
03-19-2002, 05:12 AM
its quite hard to explain the whole IK/FK system in a single post...basically its just the order the hierarchy is read ie ..parent to child or vice versa but this is of no help to you......i suggest you go through the max help files and there are some IK/FK scenes in the scenes folder i think.....
Antilles
03-19-2002, 10:26 AM
Cool, thanks everyone for their help, I'll try these things and post back... btw i understand IK and parents children, i just dont know the specific commands and buttons to make the chain IK and some other thigns but like i said, I'll try some things and check the help files.
CGTalk Moderation
01-13-2006, 02:00 AM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.