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View Full Version : Whats the best way to go about animating a propellor?

martinf430
03-09-2009, 09:51 PM
im modelling a spitfire in maya and wondering whats the best way of animating the propellor to constantly rotate?. also is it best to do the motion blur of the prop in maya or post production like after effects.

Thanks, Martin
Leionaaad
03-12-2009, 08:26 AM
I would go with expressions or math nodes, and some attribute somewhere to control the spin. And that would be only when it speeds up, I would hide it at some speed and make a disk visible (because that's all you see when it spins at high speed.)
KielFiggins
03-12-2009, 06:12 PM
I would suggest a 3 tier approach:

-a single properller fully modeled and ctrled by a single channel for spin. Free floating, direct connection, so you can animate the sutlties starting up and ending of the rotater.
-a duplicate of the first propeller and setup, for when the engine really starts to rev, you can fake the visual 'split' of the prop by having 2 blades giving your motion blur infromation
-lastly would be a single mesh for the spinning blades at full spin, with a single channel for spin.

I would steer away from automation or nodes for this. You can easily adjust the rotation values by using pre / post infity to adjust the speed. Also, keeping it manual will allow you to spot adjust it based on the motion blur settings your using.


Good luck.
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