I just got back, and yes, I did have a ton of fun!

Anyway, I had some problems, but I fixed them. I don’t know if I’ll be working on it tomorrow, because of the day off.

I almost have my rig done, but I just ran into a huge problem. I have a joint to control the hydraulics and I want it parented to a curve, so that when I move it I can move it back to it’s original position easily.

The problem is, when I parent it to the curve it screws up the rig and gets rid of the IK handle that I placed (between the top joint and the bottom joint).

So is there a workaround to this?

Leg Animation
 

Hiya,

ran in the same problem, but nobody here could help, so i did it on my own. Take a look at the animation if it is what you want.

Mechleg Animation

I am no more that often around SimplyMaya, but you can find me at: http://www.macs3d.com if u need more information how i did it ;)


cheers
mac

I built a piston rig using aim constraints for a mech a while ago. Here is the video of it working http://home.comcast.net/~rmulawa/3dp...ise/foot01.avi and the file for it is here http://home.comcast.net/~rmulawa/3dp...cise/foot01.ma

Rick M.

Thanks, guys, but I figured it out (with the help of Jay). All I did was use a set driven key. I like how that rig looks, ctbram, and I plan on checking it out later.

mac762, do you have the file for the one you made?

cool JR. It is actually the foot of a free tutorial at 3D-Palace to model a Warhammer Dreadnaught mech.

I finished the model but never rigged it because although I could get the pistons figured out I just could not figure how to do the rest of the rigging and I cannot find any good tutorials that cover rigging a mechanical thing like a mech.

From the looks of Kurt's Maya 8.5 mech tutorial the mech has simple joints that can be simply parented. All the mechs I have built have pistons and things that have to be rigged.

I guess it would have some bits I could learn, but I'd love to see a tutorial on rigging this mech.

Leg File
 

Hiya,

sure, you can download ist @ http://www.macs3d.com/downloads/leganimation.mb


cheers
mac

ctbram, I checked out the file, and the rig is great, but I have no idea how you did it.

mac762, the problem is, there’s no IK handle in there. Also, there’s not an easy way to get them back to their original position.

Well, I finished up the rig and posed it. Now I’m going to try to animate it.

The usual:

If you look on my site, you‘ll find the HD pic (which I would highly recommend doing).

C&C welcome!

-Jr.Who
:beer:

Dont know if youve seen it but if you google theres a tutorial on rigging a pistion, if it dosnet work as you wanted I would be inclined to use a SDK that uses the IK movement to drive the SDK of the piston.

true
 

well, it was just a start to see how i could fix it, i stoped shortly after that with the mech since the cude little fellow likes to fall over.

maybe the enemy would have died from laughter while watching this metalbox stumbling across the battlefield, trying to keep on its feet. But i did not dare to try it out :headbang:

so i quit animating it, gave him a texture and put it in my museum of useless garbage..hehe


cheers
mac

Well, since I already set it up, I don’t feel like re-rigging it. I’ve finished the basics of the animation, now I just need to tinker with it and make it more advanced.

Hopefully I’ll have this finished by the end of the week.
:beer:

I just updated the Assault Mech a little (put some missiles in the missile launcher) and uploaded the animation to my site.

The usual:

If you look on my site, you’ll find the HD pic (which I would highly recommend doing) and the animation.

Does anyone have anything to say, before I create the Finished thread?

-Jr.Who
:beer:

It looks GOOD.

I would make only one suggestion. You might want to scale the UV's on the leg parts up a bit so the camo pattern gets a little smaller and matches the scale on the main turret.

PS - I have been working on the piston linkage thing but I ran into a problem with this rig. If I use my aim constraint method to keep the pistons and cyclinders pointed at wach other then I run into wacked out behavior when I try to parent those parts to the joints. So I will have to rethink how to rig these.

-Rick M

Do you want my project file, so you can see the rig?

I am gonna be a little busy with school projects for a couple weeks. I am gonna take a whirl at figuring it out next time I have a chance to spend some time on it (Prolly around the end of Novemder). I'll give you a shout if I get stumped.

Thanks,
Rick