ornithopter

Artwork Works in Progress
#1

i’m making an ornithopter animation for the animation challenge. My orni is somewhat Da Vinci-esk, at least it should be :slight_smile: and I’m using armatures and softbody for the flapping wings.

http://orion.luon.net/~roderik/documents/blender/pictures/orni.v1.small.jpg

Right now I’m having some trouble using paths - it might not be implemented yet? When I let the armature of the orni follow the path, the softbody goes wild:
orni gone wild (1.53mb, avi)

But I’ll get over that, I hope :slight_smile: I’ll just keep searching for path and softbody on blender general :Z

C&C quite welcome! And other things too :smiley:

#2

i fixed the problem! i patched the wings to have faces with weight 1 on the edge.
Check it out!

http://orion.luon.net/~roderik/documents/blender/pictures/orni.v5.avi.jpg
1.9 mb

#3

wow, great work! I’ve never gotten animation to really work for me, but this is great. Maybe do an animation with a lot of them flying different directions?

#4

thanks for the C! :slight_smile: it’s somewhat the first time I got an animation to look this real, using armatures, paths and softbody… it’s really nice actually! if you’re still interested a bit in animating, just try a new tut on animating with the NLA editor - it’s a great thing.

And yeah would be quite cool to have a swarm of ornithopters :slight_smile: i’m still thinking what to put in it, an old man with a waving beard or something maybe?

I’m rendering the new anim at the moment which includes a visible ground (which quite alters the feeling so i might change that back) and a teeny weeny spot of grass. I can’t get fluids animated so I’ll have to drop the idea of a drop on the orni %| . So i’ll be making up a new interesting thing to drop on his wing.

Heh only 11 hours left :slight_smile:

#5

argh blender crashed at frame 700 of 1000… no anim to show yet, but i’ve got a question for thou, my dearest reader: what kind of interesting thing should drop on his wings? I’m aiming for a late Medieval - early Renaissance scene, so it can’t be helicopters or planes falling down, but just shoot !