Parented Local Rotation

[runelore]

Hello Everyone,

 

I am currently trying to animate a set of blinds in Studio Max. I am inherently a Lightwave user and know how to do it in Lightwave but cannot figure it out in Max.

 

I am trying to animate the rotation of a set of Window Blinds. I want each slat to rotate on its local Axis (simulating opening and closing of the blind). I have hundreds of windows so cannot do this by hand and want to be able to parent to a single null or blind in order to do the rotation on 1 item and the rest follow.

 

the issue I have is that when I parent the slats to 1 null/slat and I rotate, they all use that slats rotation as the centre and rotate around it in a large block. I need each slat to rotate on its own local axis. Is this possible in Max? It must be..

 

Many many thanks for any help here..

[SandmanNinja]

Play with this - it controls upon what axis the thing rotates:

[runelore]

thank you very much for the response but that hasnt sorted outmy problem.. thanks tho..

 

I still have the problem of the child slats moving as a group around the parent..

 

many thanks..

[dean@pikcells]

are all the slats instanced? if so you could animate the slat in sub object level (ie key frame rotate the vertices's)

 

hope you know what i mean

[Paul Twyman]

Hi,

 

Try using wire parameters in the animation window to link the rotation axis of each object.

This will make them move at the same time when one is moved.

 

Hope this helps

[SandmanNinja]

I made a video - tell me if this is what you were describing.

 

I use this to adjust the vent fins on ventilation shafts and what-not.

 

http://www.dhimaging.com.au/3D/axis.zip

 

(give it 10 minutes from the timestamp of this post to finish uploading)