horizontal tracking

Alltaken · December 1, 2002, 5:47pm

i am wondering if there is a way to track somthing that is in a 3d space.

but only track it 2dimensionaly.

eg

i have an empty that will be moving everywhere all degrees all axis.

but i have an object that i only want to rotate on the ground plane so that it does not tilt up or down but turns to face the empty.

thanks. is this automatable using IKA or can i do it using just the standard tracking options.

----full story----
i have a gun that i want to be able to track a object with.
but the tripod has a plate at the top which i only want to rotate.

top view ( i want the central part connecting the two barrels to rotate around a pole while the barels rotate verticaly in relation to that)

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thanks for your help

theeth · December 1, 2002, 5:59pm

You can achieve this by using copy loc constrains and tracking. I made an example file that I should be able to upload tomorrow, so I’ll post the link here then.

Martin

Alltaken · December 1, 2002, 6:03pm

Wow that was fast

thanks a heap.

you will see my work soon. (in the exodus forums)

theeth · December 1, 2002, 8:01pm

my solution only works if the turret sits on one of the major plane (XoY, XoZ, YoZ), but I will try to make a script that could work on all the planes.

Martin

Alltaken · December 2, 2002, 12:51am

thanks heaps again.

theeth · December 2, 2002, 6:10am

ok, try this http://www.clubinfo.bdeb.qc.ca/~theeth/AxisTrack.blend

Martin

JarellSmith · December 2, 2002, 3:02pm

I downloaded theeth’s file and I noticed that the “header” for the Track_Loc for the first ‘Copy Location’ constraint (OB: Cube) is displayed in red. This happens in both Blender versions 2.23 and 2.25 . What would be causing this? I thought that this usually indicated an error such as a cyclical reference or something.

Alltaken · December 2, 2002, 3:48pm

wow that works great.

i’ll try and put it into my other blend file when i get home.

thanks heaps

Grizzly69 · December 2, 2002, 6:20pm

Holy S**t! I’ve been looking for this very thing for a long time, but I didn’t know how to explain what I wanted.

Thanks Theeth!

theeth · December 2, 2002, 8:02pm

thanks for telling me, I didn’t notice it before. Well, that constraint was to make sure that the Empty would stay on the same level as the tracking object, but you can fix that by parenting the empty to the base.

Martin

Alltaken · December 2, 2002, 9:50pm

i was wondering one thing that is not greatly important but would “ice the cake”.

is there a way to modify the plugin so that the turret could rotate around a random axis.

currently the empty thats the turret base is tracking moves on the horizontal plane.

i was wondering if there is a way that the empty can rotate around a plane that gets its angle from the object it beongs to. (the tripod/tank/ground etc)

so that in an animation of a moving object that is going up a hill the turret will be correct in relation to this.

just wondering, it is not that important and i am not sure how hard it is to do this so if its difficult then don’t do it (unless you like a challenge)

thanks a heap.