I am thinking of creating a stewart plattform, that i can use in a bigger project im thinking about for a big mech (basically using the mechanism as a hip).
But as i thought about it, i couldnt figure out how to rig one just in my head.
So i decided to just model up a quick simple looking one based on a image i found online for testing purposes.
I then tried rigging it with various tutorials online, and the piston part is easy enough. but the offset universal joints are giving me a headache.
I looked at all the available tutorials online about universal joints, but they only deal with the joints in isolation not merged with other pieces (in my case a piston and another universal joint) and i couldn’t find anoyone using the “offset” type, only the cross in the centre type of universal joint.
Since i basically want the entire object to move when i move the top platform.
I was thinking something along the lines of a ik solution, but i couldnt make it work properly without breaking the piston.
Any rigging gods our there that know how these things are usually rigged?
These are caused by alot of locked tracks looking at each other (only way i could think of to make the universal joins drive the piston motion)
And i cant figure out how to weed out the dependencies by using extra bones etc.
The problem was i was overusing locked tracks and i basically had 2 on each side looking at each other. So the solution was using a “stretch to” rig for the piston instead of locked track, and then playing around with the head/tail lookat section of the locked tracks to get around the dependancy loop.
I Think ill make this into a youtube tutorial to help everyone else that might run into this problem.
Anyway here is the file aswell, if someone needs the solution Working_Rig_01.blend (4.1 MB)
Also here is a testfile i set up with a top and bottom plate and some animation to illustrate how it works in an actual stewart platform : Test_Platform.blend (4.2 MB)
)
