Ok so basically i have a wheel. and it spins nicely, with linear motion and it extrapolates, so that it spins forever…
What i want to do is be able to turn the spinning on / off throught the scene,
how would i go about doing that?
Im guessing i use the NLA panel, but im a little confused? any help would be really apreciated… thanks
Take a look at the ball Atom submitted in this thread… it does just that 
You will need to open up the outliner and make sure everything is visible and selectable, and find the roller object in there as well… because it has no mesh data so you won’t be able to find it in the 3D view… also be aware that the roller rotations are happening via a script.
Or if that’s not what you mean, this thread may be of use to you.
close but not quite right…
i dont want to manipulate the wheel, or get it to follow somthing, what i want it to do is make an … action? that is spinning the wheel, when my “action” is on, the ball spinns, when off, it stops… any way to do that?
Well I’m not sure how this can be done with the action editor or NLA (although I don’t doubt it can),
I will offer an alternative. This is actually why I submitted the ball example in the first place, cause this is the underlying mechanism it uses…
It has a switch to determine whether the object follows the rotations of the infintely rotating object or not… so your wheel is static, and you have an infinitely rotating null object in the same location. You can then add a copy rotation constraint to the wheel (or monkey head in this case), and turn it on or off with a bone.
The only problem is that for the last 180 degrees of the rotation, the monkey head will turn the wrong way to meet the wheel (because armatures are quaternion rotation based and the object is using euler rotations).
And like I said it’s a work around, just in case you don’t find a better solution 
I added an example animation on the file, so just press play.
Good luck!
Calumk_spinOn-Off.blend (193 KB)
To make an “object action” just turn on the “shark victim/running man” icon next to the IPO type window in the IPO header . After that the default ObAction action will show up in the Action Editor . And yes you can add these actions like you can with “normal” actions in the NLA …
But before you start adding object action strips in the NLA. you should add a blank action strip on top of the stack so you can determine where the action starts/stops …
ObAction_NLA.blend (159 KB)
Much simpler :yes:
and good to know, thanks!
Ok, thanks guys, this has been really helpfull,
But ive tried to set my rig up like Vector Pusher showed me, and im having little luck…
Ive attached the file im working on (plus a render for curiosities sake)
The one i have tried to set up is SmallCog_Arm under the NLA
Dont suppose i can have one final piece of advice?
Thanks!
Edit: file is 1.6mb
http://www.calumk.com/files/Clockwork_Camilla_EXAMPLE.blend
