Animate a rotation around an edge

Animate a rotation around an edge

Hello there,

Cheetah 3D noob here!

I am having a couple issues animating a rotation of a group of polygons around an edge.

In the start keyframe, I have my polygons in their original position. In my end keyframe, I have used the Edge Rotate tool to rotate the polygons around an edge to their end position. Points are keyed in the animation pane. I am having 2 issues:

1) the polygons rotate in the wrong direction. In other words, they rotate counterclockwise around the edge instead of clockwise (presumably because its a shorter arc by rotating counterclockwise). I have tentatively solved this by putting a key frame in the middle with the polygons partially rotated in the clockwise direction.

2) the real problem: the polygons seem to be resizing as they rotate around the edge. They get radically smaller as they rotate and then scale back to normal size by the end of the animation. I wonder why this is! Is there something I have to lock? Am I going about this all wrong?

Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you.
 
Hi and Welcome!
You´re experiencing the nature of point animation: the points will take the shortest way from A to B. Therefor the polygon will be resized. I think you need a different set-up- Can we have a screenshot or a short briefing of what you´re after?
Hope this little graphic will explain what happens during point animation.

Cheers
Frank
 

Attachments

  • Point Animation.png
    Point Animation.png
    47.3 KB · Views: 222
Thank you for your prompt reply! That makes total sense. Maybe you can suggest a better way of doing this.

I am a little embarrassed at the simplicity of what I'm trying to achieve, but all I am trying to do is animate a single box flap opening. The set of polygons that is animating is the top panel and some auxillary panels created by the bevel. I have attached a few screenshots of where I am at with this animation. You can see in the intermediary frame that the panel is much shorter.

What is the best way of going about this?

Box Closed
box closed.png

Box Partially Open
box partially open.png

Box Completely Open
box completely open.png

Thank you so much again!
 
That is fairly easy to achieve; Select the polygons of the flap and call Split tool which makes it a separate mesh. In Pivot mode and with snapping drag the gadget to the place where you expect a hinge. Go back in object mode and keyframe the rotation values: File attached.

Cheers
Frank
 

Attachments

  • Boxflap.jas.zip
    7.6 KB · Views: 206
  • Boxflap.jpeg
    Boxflap.jpeg
    25.5 KB · Views: 222
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