Follow path speed

Support Animation and Rigging
1

I have three spheres, the Sun, the Moon and the Earth. The Sun is at 0,0,0. The Earth is at y=10 and the Moon is at y=8. I have created two BezierCircles, one to represent the orbit of Earth around Sun and one two represent the orbit of the Moon around Earth.

I have set the animation to 1000 frames at 50 FPS. My problem is that the Moon sphere isn’t rotating fast enough. The BezierCircle that Earth is set to follow is set to 1000 frames too. It is spinning the right speed and way.

I’d like the Moon to spin 12 times around Earth in the time it takes from the Earth sphere to complete one revolution. If I set the orbit (the other BezierCircle) frame count to 83 (1000 / 12 is around 83) it spins the right speed but it stops after one revolution around the Earth.

How do I make the Moon spin twelve times around the Earth in the time that it takes from Earth to complete one revolution around the Sun?

Thanks,

Macrotin

2

How did you set the moon to follow the curve (Ctrl+P / follow curve ?) If so, don’t, you’d have to delete the channel modifier this sets up in the graph editor window

Use a Follow Path constraint
See the attached example blend

rotate.blend (106 KB)

3

Thanks for your reply!

I see your example is working but it doesn’t work in mine. If I copy the exact values of the follow path constraint, my sphere get really far away from the bezir circle and doesn’t even spin around it.

Yes, I had previously used CTRL + P -> Follow circle

4

Blend file ?