animated rotation off the XYZ axis

[ist00]

a quick answer question, yes looked in the help etc, had this before and cant remember the solution , been up for hours etc etc. losing hair, getting fustrated...

 

problem:

rotating a turbines blades in max, dead easy, spin on accesss drag time slider, bingo. However move them off the X, Y or Z access and the rotation goes all to pot, even using local rotation, the pivot is not animated, tried it with adhoc shapes as well still does the same. Tried it with new files, reset, rebooted still the same. What the H am I doing wrong here cant figure it out for the life of me. Combination of fustration and tiredness can anyone help?

 

note: in the viewport this animates correct whilst spinning on its own axis, play it back and it wobbles all over the place. contraints?

[IC]

What is it that veers off the axis?

If it's not the blades themselves, parenting the blades to that object should do the trick. The different animations will remain seperate but the parent object will affect the child.

 

Sorry if I'm not following the problem correctly.

[Nils Norgren]

I am not understanding exactly what the set-up is, but as a rule of thumb it is best to make a heirarchy of Dummies and link (via parent-child) your geometry to the dummies and then all you animation lives in the dummies and if you need you can update / swap out geometry. This also allows you to set up your animation axis in a clear way.

 

The default set up might be something like this:

 

 

Master dummy - this is where master transforms happen, position, etc.

Secondary dummy - this is where rotation animation lives

Geometry - what ever objects make up the turbine

 

Hope this helps

 

-Nils

[ist00]

eventually got a conclusion. Its the Euler rotation controller, apparently the order changed a few releases of max ago, something i used to do regualrly and never had any problems with... set the order to ZYX and not XYZ. I kind of solved the issue initally with a dummy controller which worked (to a degree) enough for the purposes of animaiton. However onece i have had a good look at the issue i will post my conclusions.

 

Yeah sorry for being vague but its one of these, "it never did that before" issues I work alone and get fustrated when it happens.. such as!