Rigging a plane: rudder problems!

#1

I’m having problems getting my rudder aligned with its axis (where the hinges are supposed to be…)

I’ve placed a null and aligned it to the rudder. I’m totally new to rigging, so this is kind of frustrating!

Take a look for yourselves.
I’d really appreciate some help here :slight_smile:

#2

In your case, I would use bones with weightmap on the rudder. As a matter of fact, I would use bones for all control surface simply because they are always at an odd angle. It’s easier to setup and by using weightmaps you don’t need multiple layers.

#3

Thanks :slight_smile:
I’ve never used bones or weightmaps though - is it hard to get into ?
Ailerons, elevators and flaps+slats are working just great as they are now, btw. :slight_smile:

#4

No I would disagree weight map and bone would be over kill and getting the alignment right would be more work. resting bone and all that is a pain in this job

how i would do it would be to place you null so it aligned to the axis you need it to rotate around from there with parent in place ON parent the rudder to the null …test…

if not right parent in place ON and reparent the flap to something else…

then move the null into the correct position and parent it back…

you should add the item shappe plugin to the null to make it large and use the null shape as a guide for placement. :thumbsup:

hope it helps :slight_smile:

#5

Hi, thanks for advice. Will try that one as well. All though, I was informed that parenting the rudder to the null, and rotating the rudder instead of the null would fix it - and it certainly did! :slight_smile:

Here’s a sneak peak at what I’m creating! :wink:

#6

Actually what I have done before is creating skelegons in modeler using the hinge geometry and rotating it 90 degrees so that it’ll align correctly once rigged in layout.

Step by step:

  1. create skelegons using existing geometry as the basis.
  2. assign weightmaps and bones accordingly to the control surfaces.
  3. load object into layout.
  4. convert skelegons to bones and record piv rotation.

No need to rest the bone or alignment correction at all as the bone is already perfectly perpendicular to the hinge (remember it was created from the hinge geometry in the first place).

The best part is you don’t have control surfaces as separate objects in layout, and certainly no need for extra nulls to parent them!

But hey, if it works for you, maybe I’m missing something too!

#7

I see your point there.
As I’m not familiar with rigging, I really enjoyed the walkthrough from Desktop Images’ DVD in the Special FX series. “Technical Direction with Greg Sullivan”. He goes through how to rig a plane with soft dynamics for the wheels and rigging the control surfaces using nulls, and make them animate automatically according to how the null controlling the whole rig is rotating in either H P B. But his model was WAY too simple vs. my example here.

#8

well i don’t think there is a " wrong " way to do it

I would personally just uses null so post that different view on things.

YES bones would work, for somethings I would uses bone straight away.

but for me I’m thinking nulls for parenting and expression linking etc.

but again you can do it with bones too,… half dozen of one , 6 of the other really :smiley:

#9

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.