Telescopic Joints?

Telescopic Joints?

G'day,

I've been trying out the demo of C3D since I found that I was getting nowhere with Blender.. I have been able to import some models I made in Wings3D and rig up a skeleton and semi-successfully use the IK handles to move parts of my mesh around.

DEVs FYI: As a beginner the two hard parts I found were actually finding how to display and set the vertex weights and how to use the IK handle targets.

Anyway here's my question: Is it possible in C3D to have "telescopic joints" that move in a straight line along an axis like a piston or solenoid? I have limited experience with a windows program called "Anim8or" that does not have this ability but they suggest a workaround using multiple hinge joints to create a concertina or scissor like movement that is very unwieldy and inconvenient. I know that a long time ago I played with 3D Studio for DOS :shock: and this was a standard joint that was part of the IK tools, I just don't know the correct term to use when searching for this feature.

Can anybody point me in the right direction? (or will I have to tack left and right in order to move forward? :tongue

If you have a hierarchy of bones and a child bone MOVES rather than pivots, it will act like a telescoping joint.

There are no IK constraints to help you with this, so it's a forward kinematics problem

Hi,

I've been working on rigging a suspension system, and I found a video on YouTube that described using Targets to make a piston. It might be more basic than you need, and I'm still having some problems (like flipping poles), but I'll attach a sample file in case it helps.

When you move either the top or bottom object the rest of the piston aligns itself. You could probably use this in conjunction with bones; just make the top and bottom children of different joints.

Hope it helps.