Animating a Bezier circle

Support Animation and Rigging
1

I am having trouble animating a certain part of my model: I can’t seem to make it animated.

The part I am having trouble with is a belt made from a Bezier circle, cut and oriented how I want it to be. I modified another Bezier circle and used it as the bevel for the first circle. This all worked fine until it came time to animate.

When I animate, I get the rest of the model to do what it is supposed to, but I can’t get the belt to move at all. I have tried inserting keyframes like I did with the other parts, but I can’t seem to make the belt move, it just stays how it was before the animation started.

Any ideas?
Thanks
-Tim

2

Blender 2.56
File / User Preferences / Addons / Animation, select the Rotobezier addon.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.5/Py/Scripts/Animation/RotoBezier
For earlier versions of blender, use shape keys.

Also, you only need to post this question once, no need for the same question in three different forums.

3

Thanks for the info.

Sorry, I didn’t realize that people browse through all the forums and I’m on a bit of a deadline.

4

If RotoBezier does not work for you then you’ll likely have to convert the bezier surface into a mesh.

5

I’m assuming you’re using an armature for your rig? You can control a bezier curve using an armature modifier, so long as you use bone envelopes. You can animate any control points in your curve that are within the influence of a bone’s envelope.

Alternatively, you can set a hook at each control point and parent those hook empties to one or more bones in your rig.