Crane Rigging

[checko]

Does anyone know of a tutorial for rigging a crane?

 

To be specific I've encounter a few problems:

1. When I rotate the crane arm I want the hook at the end of the crane to stay vertical and perpendicular to the ground.

2. The arm of the crane also extend - it becomes longer, can I somehow set the maximum extension length. So it extend to a certain length and stop.

 

Any help would be great.

Thanks

[jsf]

These tutorials by Louis Marcoux at Autodesk Area should be a good starting point.

 

http://area.autodesk.com/louis_tutorials/animation_and_rigging_techniques_for_architecture_visualization

 

Also look for robot arm tutorials, in general.

 

The crane extension can be done using a slider and reaction controller.

[checko]

Perfect! The tutorials are quite comprehensive.

 

Thanks

[Corey Beaulieu]

As to the arm staying perpendicular to the ground, you could always just place a box in your scene and then use an orientation constraint from the hook to the box. This way no matter what the other parenting does, it will always have the orientation of the box.