Issues with Animation features in Fusion

[Anonymous]

hey there guys i been thinking about using the animation part of F360 but i cant never understand what im doing or why am i even trying, i mean i follow some walk thru on this site http://fusion360.autodesk.com/learning/learning.html?guid=GUID-B1D01B42-5A3F-452C-B375-1019E5D19547 and i tell you i dont understand jack! im sorry it just seems like a very vague approach.

i been trying to get this cat to walk in a animation and no luck, i start to pull a legg sorta like a animatronic approach and all i end up doing is pulling a legg out of the body lol im just not seeing the results i was expecting and i dont know if is me or my expectation of this program are just too high.

this drone the same thing, it has two motors as you can see but they are independent on its axis and i was trying to animate its motors from a hover position to drift slitly left right then back and forth, all i ended up doing is pulling the motors right out of the wings, ughhhhh

some pointer will be great, thank you guys in advanced!

[jeff_strater]

for the cat legs - those should all be revolute joints, I think.  I've modeled a very simple version, and showed how you can create these joints.

Getting them to animate like walking is a harder problem - you'll have to use pretty complex Motion Links or a Motion Study.

But, first, concentrate on getting the right joints in place.

Hope this gets you past this blockage

Jeff Strater (Fusion develoment)

[Anonymous]

looks good to start with jeff, now how do we go about adding constrains, obviously we dont want the lower leg to revolute around the whole upper leg crashing into the body you know?

[jeff_strater]

what you want, I think, is "Joint Limits".  This does limit the movement of a joint.

Here's another screencast:

Jeff

[Anonymous]

geeesh this was so easy i feel stupid asking lol if only it was that simple to make the actual motors be constrain that easy when it comes to programming it lol nice thanks , i actually have another question about the moving the limbs once im done setting up the joints but ill make a short video to simplify the question better for you Jeff, thanks i appreciate your help a lot!

[Anonymous]

getting errors about the link format and im not sure why when i have done this here before the same way

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lgmdirq15o2oaur/ScreenCapture_12-31-2015%204.12.00%20PM.wmv?dl=0

[jeff_strater]

Hi @Anonymous, sorry for the slow response.  Holiday and all...

OK, I think I understand your problems.  It all really comes down to the difference in Fusion between a "body" and a "component".  It's a common area for confusion, and one we are working on constantly to improve.  But, at the moment, it's a core concept that you need to understand.  Fortunately, your model is fine, you can easily make it work.  More on that below.

First, here are a couple of links of interest:

• understanding-components - this is a forum thread where this topic is discussed
• Help: Bodies and Components - this is a Fusion help article on this topic that I think is very helpful

But, here is the quick version:

1. Bodies are usually used as building blocks to components.  In most cases (there are some exceptions) each of your components will end up with just a single body
2. A Component is a unit of reuse in a mechanical design.  Components can be considered "parts" or "subassemblies".  Components can be instanced (that is, you can make multiple copies of a component which all share the same geometry).  Each component instance can be moved independently.  But, most importantly for your case, only Components can be joined using Joints.

But, as you found in exploring, there is the Create Components from Bodies command.  This is an important command.  The first step for you in your cat design (very cool design, by the way!) would be to create components from each body in your design.

Second, from your video, it is clear that you have modeled everything "in place".  This is great, because it makes creating the joints even easier.  There is a command called "As Built Joint" that is very easy to use.

Here is a screencast showing how to do this:

Finally, your question regarding how do fill in this area:

It's a bit hard to tell from the picture what the geometry is.  Yes, you can use Sculpt to fill in this area, but I wouldn't use Sculpt for this.  I would just use some solid modeling features - either Extrude or Revolve.

Here is another hastily put together screencast showing a couple of ways to do this.

Hope this gets you on your way

Jeff

[Anonymous]

i dont have that "as built joint"thanks for the compliments jeff

this is my ver.

[jeff_strater]

Sorry, you are right, I keep forgetting that you are designing with a Direct Modeling design, not a history-based design, and As-Built Joint is only avaliable in a History-based design.  History-based design has some advantages and some disadvantages, and that is one of the advantages. You can convert your design to history-based by right clicking on the root of the browser, and choosing "capture design history":

But, you don't have to do this - you can use the normal joint to build this model, almost as easily.

The important thing, though, is the bodies vs. components stuff.  You will have to understand this to proceed.  Take a look at the referenced articles and threads to learn about this.  You will have to convert your bodies to components to be able to add joints

Jeff

[Anonymous]

where can i learn about diff types of bodies and there definitions as well as differences between Direct Modeling design and history-based design? (cons vs pros) thanks Jeff

[jeff_strater]

This is from the post above:

First, here are a couple of links of interest:

• understanding-components - this is a forum thread where this topic is discussed
• Help: Bodies and Components - this is a Fusion help article on this topic that I think is very helpful

And adding one on design history:

• What is design history?

[jeff_strater]

Oh, and this one provides an overview of body types :

• Form overview