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Garage door animation

7 REPLIES 7
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Message 1 of 8
ugdu06
1453 Views, 7 Replies

Garage door animation

Hi there,

 

This is my first post on this forum, and I must say that I've been through all the possible tutorials this week-end without any success.

Basically I'm a "confirmed" user of 3ds max when talking about modelling, but concerning animations, I'm a real newbie ๐Ÿ™‚

 

The thing I'm trying to achieve today is to automate a roller garage door opening, made of several panels. I've found my way using the spline IK solver, expected that the upper part of the upper panel of the door should follow an other path, and that's when things start being complicated.

G1.png

So far the garage door follows pretty well the yellow spline, that's a good thing.G2.pngG3.png

 

So, basically I've tried to create a point helper at the top of the 4th panel, then, created a new point helper at the top of the fifth panel, linked it to this panel, and linked the panel to the first point helper, hoping that everything would follow gently the 2 curves, but nothing to do, and moreover it became a real mess ๐Ÿ˜„

 

G4.pngG5.png

 

I join you the scene I'm working on at the moment, hoping that someone more skilled that I am will be able to guide me through the dark.

 

All the best to all of you ๐Ÿ˜‰

7 REPLIES 7
Message 2 of 8
aslantamjidi
in reply to: ugdu06

Check this Video of a cool and  free Script. could solve your Problem.

Message 3 of 8
leeminardi
in reply to: ugdu06

This is a tough problem!  YOu essentially want one end of an object to follow one path and the other end to follow a different path AND you want to maintain a constant distance between the points on the different paths.  I don't think the tank tread video posted by @aslantamjidi solves this problem.

 

You can use a SplineIK Solver to control the position of the bottom 4 garage door panels but the problem is how to control the orientation of the top panel. I do not think you can easily establish a relationship between the % along path value for the bottom panels with % along value of a point on the top rail and use a LookAt constraint to orient the top panel.

 

I think the most effective solution is to link the top panel with the next to the top panel and manually keyframe its rotation. 

In the example below I used bones to represent the bottom 4 panels. The pivot of the top panel is at its bottom. 

image.pngimage.pngimage.png

 

image.png

 

lee.minardi
Message 4 of 8
ugdu06
in reply to: leeminardi

Thanks @leeminardi  and @aslantamjidi  !!

 

I'm definitely going to try those ideas !! I'll keep you posted soon if I succeed !!

 

Have a nice day y'all !

Message 5 of 8
kibrituss
in reply to: ugdu06
Message 6 of 8
leeminardi
in reply to: kibrituss

The approach you outline will work for all the door panels except the top panel.  That is not the problem.  The challenge is the top panel which follows two different paths and must maintain a constant distance between the two points that are following different paths.  See the op's original post and my comments in post #3.

lee.minardi
Message 7 of 8
hagen.deloss
in reply to: ugdu06

@ugdu06 

 

ouf this is an issue I have seen many folks struggle with, and it really is a case by case solution, one size does not fit all! I think at some point a manual keyframe is necessary as @leeminardi  outlined, did you get a chance to look into implementing any of these suggestions?

 

By the way, your project looks really neat, I hope we get to see more of it on the forums!

 

 



Hagen Deloss
Community Manager | Media & Entertainment
Installation & Licensing forums | Contact product support | Autodesk AREA


 

Message 8 of 8
ugdu06
in reply to: hagen.deloss

@hagen.deloss  Yep actually the problem is kind of tricky, but I'll find the way ( with the help of you guys as well ) to make it work. At the moment I'm finalizing some renders but I should have a bit of spare time to figure it out this week-end.

 

@kibrituss Unfortunately the path deform is not the option here, but nice proposition though ๐Ÿ˜‰

 

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