Hi

I am not sure which subject to post this under because I don’t know if it is going to be a Mel answer or what! I have never used Mel and I think it might be the only way.

I have a scene of a workshop and I have a woodwork vice which the moving parts are made up of two groups, the first group are the parts that move in or out i.e. the front jaw and the two guide bars and the second group is the parts that rotate, i.e. the leading screw, the tommy bar and the bit the tommy bar goes through.

The rotating group I have added to attributes one to control rotate X and one to translate X. I have used the connection editor to join these together and to connect them to the normal rotate X and translate X. The reason I made new attributes and not used the built in ones is I wanted to set minimum and maximum values so the vice can’t go passed closed or open to far.

Then on the non rotating group, I have made a new attribute to control the translate X (again so I can set min and max values).

Then again in the connection editor I have set my new rotate X on the rotating group up to drive the new translate X on the non rotating group.

This starts to work, when I highlight the new rotate X on the rotating group and middle drag as it rotates the vice opens.

The problem is about a quarter turn of the new rotate X and the vice is fully open. What I need to achieve is for every full rotation of the handle the jaw opens about ten units, that would be moves ten units in translate X, and I have not a got a clue how to achieve this.

I know there is an easy manual way of doing it, at frame 1 set a key frame for all the bits that need to move and then so many frames later rotate X one full tern and move the translate X 10 units then set another key frame and so on but I would like to get this to work if I can. Any ideas?

Thanks
Trikeman