October 26, 2004 at 6:42 am /
#1255
Hmm – this may be to large now for the forum – but – this should be finished – although it is easily updated or corrected…
Regards,
Scott
October 26, 2004 at 6:42 am /
#12428
A NEWB’s perspective – my first time through…
A quick and dirty cheat sheet – based on Paul Gausden’s great tutorial on creating a steam locomotive…
I tried to strip away everything not directly pertaining to the animation of a rod…
USING THE ROD ANIMATOR PLUG-IN
3DC SKILLS
-All the basic object creation and manipulation…
-Shift center…
PREREQUISITES
– Motion is being created for only two parts contained in the following two groups…
–PISTON ROD – connected to wheel – Circular motion around wheel…
–PISTON – Connects the Piston’s shaft and PISTON ROD – Back and forth motion…
-PISTON ROD Group must be a child group of wheel it connects to…
-PISTON Group – must be child group of you ‘Main’ engine group and not part of the wheel group…
-ENGINEER plug-in was used and all motion is referenced to the starboard (right) side wheels…
-For simplicity – each group will contain only one part… Once the motion of the group is correct –
I found it fairly easy to add additional parts as necessary…
As per Paul’s Tutorial…
I start with the starboard side…
PISTON CYLINDER
– Create the PISTON CYLINDER (Non Moving Part) and place it in proper position… Insure
‘pivot point’ is center of cylinder…
PISTON ROD
– Create the PISTON ROD and record it’s length…
– Run ‘Shift Center’ Plug-in on PISTON ROD…
– Drag the PISTON ROD and drop it in the ‘wheels’ group it connects to… It
needs to be a child group of the desired ‘wheels’ group…
– The ‘pivot point’ of the PISTON ROD must be the same as the point of attachment
on the desired wheel… Usually aft end of the PISTON ROD…
PISTON
– Create the PISTON ( Actually the part that connects the piston’s shaft to the PISTON ROD )
– Move the PISTON into the ‘Main’ group for your locomotive…
– The ‘pivot point’ of the PISTON must be centered on the PISTON CYLINDER’s x axis… All other
axis changed by ‘Rod Animator’ plug-in…
RUNNING ROD ANIMATOR
– At this point – you should be able to run the Rod Animator plug-in…
– First select the starboard wheel that the PISTON ROD is connected to… Again – PISTON ROD
needs to be child of this group…
– Now run the Plug-In… You should see the name of your PISTON ROD group displayed in the
first field… Select it… In the bottom field you need to scroll through you hierarchy
to find the PISTON group associated with the PISTON ROD you are trying to animate…
Select this as well… Input the length of the PISTON ROD you recorded earlier… Note
the KEY FRAMES set to 16… Just hit the START button…
– Your first PISTON ROD and PISTON should now be animated…
REPEAT PROCESS FOR OTHER SIDE
– Copy all the necessary parts and procedures to the port side – following the procedures above…
The only real difference is that you still select the starboard side wheel to animate the
port side PISTON ROD and PISTON… The pivot points must be centered to the port
side of the locomotive as well…
REDO ALL ANIMATIONS TO 16 KEY FRAMES
– The ENGINEER PLUG-IN sets all KEY FRAME animations to 8… We need to change them all to match 16
– otherwise it will not work properly… Again the Rod Animator plug-in does this for you…
– Select the desired wheel group that the CONNECTING RODS built by the ENGINEER plug-in are
attached to…
– Run the ROD Animator plug-in once again…
– Select the CONNECTING ROD group displayed in the top field… Select the ‘WHEEL ANIMATION’ check
box… The bottom field should disappear…
– Press the start button and the wheel should be animated…
– Repeat for other side…
CLEARING ALL ANIMATIONS ON AN OBJECT
???
RE-ANIMATING WHEELS THAT DO NOT HAVE RODS ATTACHED
???
NOTES:
-Save Save Save – I like saving a copy of my work prior to animating anything…
-Always do a final check of the animation in MSTS – there is no substitute…
October 26, 2004 at 7:00 am /
#12429
The above document is a work in progress… This is no substitute for the great Steam Engine tutorial Paul created… It was only meant as a quick reference… It is my understanding of what needs to be done to animate a rod using the ROD ANIMATOR plug-in… Since it is my first time through – it could be totally wrong in spots… I will update it as necessary…
Paul walked me through a great deal of the process step by step- so I figured I would attempt to record it so others may gain the benifit of that experience…
If parts are wrong – please let me know – and I will correct it…
##########################################
While writing this I did discover two thing I did not know how to do…
WHEELS WITHOUT RODS: While I can use the Rod Animator plug-in to redo animations on wheels with rods – how do I do it on wheels without rods ??? I just noticed my bogie and remaining main wheel do not turn since I changed the Key Frames…
CLEAR ANIMATIONS: Is there an easy way to clear the animations so you can start from scratch when things are not working right ???
Thanks again…
<!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="
" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>
Regards,
Scott
October 26, 2004 at 7:36 am /
#12430
The ‘Length’ of the piston rod is from the wheel connection point to the piston connection point. This is usually the rod length without bearings attached.
Run shift center (now also an operation) with the aft face of the piston rod selected.
Wheels with no connections – just select the wheel. Run the animator plugin, but do not press anything except the OK button.
The plugin will give an error, but it has finished the process correctly.
Clearing – on the animation toolbar at the bottom, there is a button to remove animations for an group (next to the remove all animations button!)
October 26, 2004 at 8:56 am /
#12431
Hi Paul,
Reformatted and put into WORD doc… If you would review and give your blessing… Anything else you feel I missed – I would be glad to make changes… I will take one or two snap shots and call it complete…
<!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>
Thanks,
Scott
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