Umbrella

[SheepFactory]

i would use set driven key for this kinda thing.

A|i

[sneth]

That much I know. I do want to use set driven key to open/close the umbrella. What I can't quite figure out though is how to link the parts together so that they move appropriately. It's easy to create the pole and drive the raising of the spokes from one value, but I also want to model the lower portion with the support members that attach to a central hub that slides up the pole. That's the part that's stumping me.

[Jhonus]

Parent a locator to the end of the each spoke (where it joins the central slidey bit). And then try point constraining the locator to the central slidey bit.

Of course that would mean the spoke thingies would be a seperate object to the central slidey bit.

You'd then have to do somethign similar to the other ends of the spokey thingies aswell.

The setup is actually very similar to the way you would do a setup for a hydraulics in Maya. So heres a tutorial, theres a part on faking hyrdraulic motion. YOu can apply it to the umbrella.

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/mechpoly/

[ACFred]

Nah, you don't need set driven keys for this, unless you really, really want to use them.

I created a mechanism to open and close the umbrella by simply placing a three joint chain, starting around the slider, going up to where the little cross-bar and the umbrella arm meet.
Then, I put in an IK on the joint.
A little grouping, orient constraining and parenting later, you have the proper hinge that you need. Works fine.

By just moving the slider up and down, the umbrella arm and cross-bar move in proper unison.

The pictures below show it in action.

http://www.community3d.com/images/umb_up.jpg

http://www.community3d.com/images/umb_down.jpg

You can find the Maya file (v4) here:
http://www.community3d.com/images/umbrella.mb (http://) (50KB)

If you want detailed explanation, let me know.

Good luck!

[sneth]

Excellent! That's just what I was looking for; I had a feeling I might be able to get this done with joints/IK but couldn't quite figure it out. I had figured set driven key would be necessary to make all the spokes move together, but with this solution that's all taken care of. I'll try to decipher the file you posted to see if I can produce the same results from scratch. With luck I can do it without needing any more help. Thanks so much.

[sneth]

I knew this should be simple. Worked out great.

Thanks again for your help.

[ACFred]

Cool. Nice job! Glad it worked out for you.

You'll have to show off your final umbrella.

[dlindwall]

That's pretty cool. I'm working on a tire that goes over bumps and getting the shocks to cooporate correctely is a little pain staking.

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