Different Loop

Support Animation and Rigging
1

I’ve read all the looping threads I can find, but what I want to know isn’t really covered. I am doing an animation of a vehicle that has a fan blade on it. How do I create a looping animation for the fan, and still be able to move the vehicle? In the action editor, it asks for armatures. I’m not using any as the fan is only a rotation animation. Anybody got a clue?

Thanks.

2

Try creating two IPO points for the rotation, using the Curve–>Extend Mode–>Cyclic option. This makes the object rotate indefinitely in the animation so to start and stop, you could create a sepperate .blend file or layers (use two other layers - one for constant rotation and one for still/starting/stopping).

  1. Go to frame 1 and insert a rotation keyframe (IKEY).
  2. Go to a later frame and set the rotation to 360 subtract: 360 divided by the number of frames in the rotation (I think). Then insert another rotation keyframe. This should create a seemlessly repeatable animation to loop.
  3. Go to the IPO view and sellect the rotation IPOs (RotX, RotY and RotZ; make sure the rotating object is sellected). Then go to Curve–>Extend Mode–>Cyclic.

If all works correctly, you should be able to make the rest of your animation without worrying any more about the fan.

I hope this is helpful!

Edit: If you find this jumpy, try setting the second keyframe to 360 degrees instead of a little bit less (I think I forgot to account for the fact that blender restarts the cycle immediatly :expressionless: ). Try and experiment; one of the two should yield better results.

3

Just wanted to let you know that your info worked like a charm. Another fine tool I didn’t know about/how to use.