How to rig a semi trailer truck in blender

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Hello,
I am creating an animation , which have a scene that a semi trailer truck is moving around a bounded track.
I need to rig my semi trailer truck so that it move realistically.
for example this youtube video link may help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXiZZU34CAk
Please help me , that how can I rig my semi truck like this.
thanks in advance
Tapash

2

I can help you, but not until after Xmas - I will be too inebriated to work reliably until then. :smiley:

It can be done very similar to how I rig trains. :yes:

Cheers, Clock.

3

I can not try it at the moment but I think it should work like this:
put an empty (Empty_Trailer) at the coordinates where the trailer would rotate. That would probably be in the center of the middle axles of the trailer.
Put an empty (Empty_Truck) where trailer connects to the truck.
Give Empty_Trailer a Locked Track Constraint with Empty_Truck as a target. Lock for example the Z Axis and set the To axis to Y.
Now the Y Axis of Empty_Trailer should allways be looking at Empty_Truck
Connect the Y-Coordinates of Empty_Trailer to the Y-Coordinates of Empty_Truck minus the length of your trailer and set the driver to use local space of Empty_Trailer. If this does not work you will have to set it to local space of Empty_Truck and make sure that Empty_Truck rotates just like Empty_Trailer, perhaps with a Copy Rotation constraint.

That is how you get the trailer to follow the truck. Rigging the rest (rotating wheels, tilting in curves and things like that) should work just like rigging a car.

4

Thank you so much. I will wait for your reply. You already helped me writing

It can be done very similar to how I rig trains.

Thank you again.

5

@Lumpengnom Thank you so much. I am trying according to your suggestion and if I face any problem I will let you know.
Thank you again. :slight_smile:

6

Thank you. if you give an example with blend file it will help me a lot.
Thanks in advance.

7

Hey, I used to have a .blend file (2.4x days) of this set-up but I am still trying to find it. If I remember it used a python script and drivers. You would think it would be an easy rig but from what I remember , it wasn’t. If I find it I will post it but don’t wait on me…

Have you tried ‘rigid body physics’ by chance ?

8

not yet tried with rigid body physics. if you figure out something please let me know. Thank you so much.

9

OK, so here is my rough rig: :eyebrowlift:

Screen Shot 2017-12-28 at 16.08.06.png1628×1029 212 KB

I didn’t spend a lot of time on the modelling, just enough to show it working. you will need to check “Auto-run Python Scripts” in User Preferences => File tab, or the wheels won’t rotate, they use scripted expression drivers you see. :eek:

Here’s the wheel driver: :spin:

Screen Shot 2017-12-28 at 16.12.57.png1313×408 53.1 KB

And here is the blend file: truck.blend (2.29 MB)

Just press “Play” to see it working. There are two other cameras in there, you can change active camera to one of these then watch the animation from that camera if you like, they both show a different perspective on the truck.

Any questions, just ask my friend @ajcdfin - Ha Ha! - just joking, ask me… :slight_smile:

Cheers, Clock. :RocknRoll:

PS. Happy New Year to one and all. :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
10

Thank you so much. You are really amazing. I will ask you what I need to learn. Thanks again.

11

You’re welcome! Take a good slow look at the setup, bone parenting, how the constraints work, key-framing of the “trailer-tgt” object, etc. All is important. You can reshape the trailer path curve to get different lines, but if you do this you will have to adjust the trailer-tgt keyframes so it keeps in the right place, i.e. at the centre of the two trailer axles.

Cheers, Clock.

EDIT:

I modified the truck a little during a bout of “JD” consumption to celebrate the 27th of December: :slight_smile:

upload.png960×540 158 KB

1 Like
12

@clockmender I think you should make a tutorial on it. I bet people must like it. Because I searched so many times on youtube but find nothing. :frowning:
Happy New Year to you and thank you again. :slight_smile:

13

I modified the truck a little during a bout of “JD” consumption to celebrate the 27th of December: :slight_smile:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]509846[/ATTACH]

YaYa, You and the Erkinator…Was looking through your .blend file, nice solution. We’re going to have to change your screen name to something like Anima-mender or Anima-master…:slight_smile:

Any questions, just ask my friend @ajcdfin - Ha Ha! - just joking, ask me… :slight_smile:

Thats funny…my mom did say I was good for nothin…HeHeHe

14

:o:o:o:o, but thank you anyway!

Your Mum was clearly wrong by the way. :smiley:

Cheers, Clock.

15

Here is a tutorial that will teach you how to rig and animate a semi-trailer truck in blender 2.83 https://gachoki.com/how-to-rig-and-animate-a-semi-trailer-truck-in-blender-2-83-in-8-minutes/