New Tutorial on Mechanical Pistons

Artwork Finished Projects
1

Hi folks,

my last WIP ( https://blenderartists.org/viewtopic.php?t=3293 )had some flattening comments among which the request of a tut by Nayman on how to make idraulic pistons move realistically…

So, even if the WIP is still a WIP, here is a tut :slight_smile:

http://www.selleri.org/Blender/ Main site

http://www.selleri.org/Blender/tuts/Pistons.pdf direct link

Comments?

Stefano

2

wow!nice tute!and pdf too :smiley:
cant wait to try it,since im animationally challenged.

im glad you guys share your knowledge,or i would still be sitting here banging my head on the keyboard,wondering how to get blender to do something :o

thanx
rixtr

3

thanx a bunch s86

i need to know, because i am a detail freak, and lofe building landing gear, but never can get it tro work!

4

Thanks. I love mocking mechanical systems with armatures/parenting. Nice solution. My only complaint was that your last sentence on page 4 made me think that you were going to demo the fluid hose technique, but alas…

Thanks again.

5

Great tut :slight_smile:

when the italian version ?

Ciao
Kino

6

I’m having a problem, which I solved. I don’t know if you encountered the same thing and just didn’t include the workaround or if perhaps I did something wrong.

My problem with the technique as described in the tutorial is that when I make the piston pieces the child of the main part of the leg (or whatever), they do not follow the leg part when it is deformed by the armature. I think it’s happening because the armature is deforming the mesh, and not moving the actual object. What I had to do was make the piston a child of one of the vertices (vertex-parent) in the piston tie-down on the leg. That seemed to work. Did I do something wrong?

7

harkyman: It works also if you parent the piston to bone.

S68: Nice tut! I have a technique for hoses with armatures. I have an example .blend, maybe you’d like to see it.

Martin

8

cool tut!!

if what you mean with the fluid hose thing is what I think you mean one solution to the problem is that you make the hose and an ik-armature to bend it and point the ik constraint to an empty. then parent the armature to the leg and the empty to the moving piston and voila! after that the hose keeps in place fully automated when you move the leg armatures.

a quick and dirty example http://members.lycos.co.uk/kurppa/pistons.html

hope this helps!

9

Thanks boys (and girls?)

rixt66: my spider is slimmer than yours (and will be LightFlowed soon, actually all this armature is not for animation, primarily, but for my convenience to place the spider easily in a dramatic pose for a still… well, an animation later on, maybe…

Nayman: 68, not 86 :slight_smile:

harkyman: I still have to understand IK constraints :(, then, as other said, in mechanics you must parent meshes to bones, not armatures.

Kino/me is lazy :slight_smile:

theeth Yes please! (with comments :wink: )

kurppa I get your point, but I don’t know how to do it :slight_smile:

Stefano

10

I’m at work now. I’ll post it tonight.

Martin

11

http://www.geocities.com/theeth/Plug.zip

copy/paste

it shows two methods, both works well and both have their pros and cons.

Martin

12

Thanx :slight_smile:

In the meanwhile I managed to work on on the basis of kurppa suggestions. I’ll check your file, then update the tutorial (crediting both of you :slight_smile: )

Stefano