Transformation in Animation workspace is unruly.

[Anonymous]

I've modeled a swiss army knife and I want to animate the blade opening but I have no idea how to make it work properly. It's easier to show with pictures

First I select the blade itself...

Then I place the pivot point on a pin the blade is supposed to rotate around...

Rotate it 180 degrees...

And this is how it ends up looking like:

Gyazo GIF

It's both hilarious and upsetting at the same time.

How do I make the blade open normally? (Rotate around the pin)

P S I did get it to work nicely with joints in the modeling workspace.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I gave this a try in the animate workspace and you're right. It seems to apply a linear move with a 180 degree rotation, instead of just a rotation about the pivot point you indicated. The result is this very disturbing compound motion as seen in your GIF. I have heard that the animation workspace is getting some attention in upcoming update to have some basic support for joints, which would make it much more useful! 

You said you did get it to work properly by setting up joint relation in the model workspace. What you can do with those joints is create a 'motion study'. you can then set up rotation parameter of your pivot joint along a timeline. You could then play motion study and record the screen to capture the animation. (I don't think there is a native way to export as a movie)

You can find motion study under the Assemble drop down menu in the Model workspace. 

I hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply,

This solution is pretty dirty if one wants to end up with a video, but it's perfect for me. I had no idea the function existed and it's much more convenient than animating.(at least in my case)

Really thanks a lot.

[James.Youmatz]

Hi Everybody,

I just wanted to let everyone know that is a known problem and Development has fixed it. The fix is scheduled to be included in the September update. Sorry for the inconvience, but stay tuned for the September update! [This issue was logged internally as FUPB-922].

Thanks,