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Corners of Box constrained to Sides of Hallway

6 REPLIES 6
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Message 1 of 7
LyleHardin
360 Views, 6 Replies

Corners of Box constrained to Sides of Hallway

I've searched but haven't found anything quite like this.

I think I need a combination of path or surface constraint and kinematics but I'm not sure.

 

Picture a curved hallway with varying width.

I want a large box to move down the hallway with the right front corner of the box always touching the right wall and the left rear corner always touching the left wall.

How do I do this?

 

In reality, we are wanting to animate a barge going up a river. We have GPS paths of two opposite corners of the barge. Of course a simple follow path constraint won't work. I need the rear of the barge to swing around to follow the other GPS path.

 

BoxInHall.GIF

6 REPLIES 6
Message 2 of 7
RobH2
in reply to: LyleHardin

As you can see from my post below yours I have been wrestling with some rigging issues. I have attached one way to do what you need to do. I'm sure some of the hotshots here will have a more elegant way but sometimes just making it work for a deadline is more important.

 

Just animate the two point helpers and the boat will follow.

 

Here are the basics:

 

Create box (boat)

Create two splines (bow and stern paths)

Create two point helpers

Constrain the helpers to the splines with 'path constraint'

Create a bone with a nub. Don't automatically assign IK.

Put Skin on box

Assign two bones to skin

Select and link bone 1 to point helper 1

Select and link bone 2 to the point helper 2

Apply a 'look-at' constraint to bone 1 and pick point helper 2 as the target.

Go to Envelopes and weight table and make sure all weights for bone 2 verts are 0.000

Animate the point helpers along the paths and the boat will follow

 

Edit: I went ahead and animated it and attached that too.

 

 


Rob Holmes

EESignature

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3ds Max (2022-2024.2), V-Ray 6.2, Ryzen 9 3950-X Processor, DDR 4 128MB, Gigabyte Aorus X570 Master motherboard, Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 M.2 drives, NVidia RTX 4090, Space Pilot Pro, Windows 11 Pro x64, Tri-Monitor, Cintiq 13HD, Windows 11 x64
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Message 3 of 7
LyleHardin
in reply to: RobH2

That might do it.

I've never done Bones before so I'll have to look that and rigging up.

I did notice I could get rid of the smaller bone and things still work fine.

Can't wait to give it a try. Might be next week at this point.

 

Message 4 of 7
RobH2
in reply to: LyleHardin

To link the bone to the point helper, select the bone. Then go to 'Select and Link' in the tool bar and click it. You'll get a dotted rubber band meaning it's asking you to pick something to link to. Click the point helper and it will flash 'white' for just an instant. Then it's linked. It's that simple.

Rob Holmes

EESignature

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3ds Max (2022-2024.2), V-Ray 6.2, Ryzen 9 3950-X Processor, DDR 4 128MB, Gigabyte Aorus X570 Master motherboard, Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 M.2 drives, NVidia RTX 4090, Space Pilot Pro, Windows 11 Pro x64, Tri-Monitor, Cintiq 13HD, Windows 11 x64
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Message 5 of 7
LyleHardin
in reply to: RobH2

Yeah sorry about that.

For some reason before my first response I didn't scroll down far enough to see your perfectly fine step by step instructions. I edited my post but apparently you saw it before my edit.

I did end up giving it a whirl. My skin is floating away even though I (thought I) applied it while the box was over the bone. I'll mess with it a bit more next week. Fun! Thanks a lot. I appreciate the help.

Message 6 of 7
RobH2
in reply to: LyleHardin

Good enough. Good luck.

Rob Holmes

EESignature

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3ds Max (2022-2024.2), V-Ray 6.2, Ryzen 9 3950-X Processor, DDR 4 128MB, Gigabyte Aorus X570 Master motherboard, Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 M.2 drives, NVidia RTX 4090, Space Pilot Pro, Windows 11 Pro x64, Tri-Monitor, Cintiq 13HD, Windows 11 x64
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Message 7 of 7
Doughboy12
in reply to: LyleHardin

Helper one at the front of the boat...and on path.

Helper two at the stern...also on path.

Boat link to helper one...

Helper one with a look at constraint to helper two...align boat as needed.

 

Should do it!

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