I am trying to make a modle of an atom and am having trouble getting the “electrons” to orbit, I don’t know what I did wrong, or if I’m just missing something. As far as I know when I change frames the two spheres should start orbiting, but they dont. Yet when i use the evaluation times, they do orbit. Any help with this would be GREAT!!!
also if anyone can tell me how to make a sphere orbit more than once that would be SO HELPFULL!!!
Nitrogen2.5upload.blend (316 KB)
You need to keyframe the offset variable, but if you want something cyclic it would probably be smoother to parent it to an empty and keyframe the rotation. Go into the f-curve editor and add a “cyclic” modifier to a simple rotation animation of your empty (make sure to set the animation curves to be linear – no smoothing out/slowing down at the ends). Set the cycle’s beginning and end to offset.
I’m not explaining this very elegantly, but a blend is attached.
that’s exactly what I want to happen!!! thank you very much!!!
because I am kindof beginning, would you explain how I could “add a cyclic modifier”
thanks again!
Go into the animation set of windows (at the top of your scene it says “1.Model” – click the box to the left of that and choose “2.Animation”). On the right side of that screen you’ll see the ‘F-Curve Editor’ (again, I’m using YOUR specific setup in the blend you uploaded to navigate here). Select an object that is animated. Though you applied a constraint to the spheres in the blend you posted, you didn’t animate the offset, so they won’t be available. However, the blend I uploaded has an animated empty. So the empty should be on the list. Select the empty, and notice that on the right side of the F-Curve Editor is a panel with “View Properties”. You probably need to click the triangle next to that in order to show the properties. If you’ve selected the Empty, and highlighted the “X Euler Rotation” under it, you should see something like this:
Notice that there are only two keyframes (orange dots) but the red line extends well beyond them (normally it would flatten out and hold at the final value). This is because of the modifier. So, to learn how they work, do the following:
And there you have it.
One trick is that you need the keyframes to be LINEAR. Try this, make sure the keyframes are selected (hover over the window and press ‘a’ until they’re highlighted orange). Then press Shift+T and choose “Bezier”. You’ll see the formerly straight line gets kind of wavy:
Play back the animation and you’ll see the ball pause at the end of every cycle. This is the default way for keyframes to behave!!!* So you’ll need to set it to linear by pressing Shift+T and choosing “Linear.”
cheers
thanks again!!! that’s awsome, this will help me to do alot of other stuff too!!! I think this will be the last thing I ask and thank you for your paitience with me, but how do I animate an empty?
how do I animate an empty?
The same way you animate any object: move to the your desired frame (in time, that is), move/rotate/scale your object however you want it, then in the 3D window press the I key. This brings up a menu, choose “Rotation” and it sets a keyframe. Then go forward 20, 30, 50, however-many frames, and rotate your object. If you press the N key you’ll be able to see the rotation value changing (in Eulers, where 3.14 (pi) equals a half-rotation, I think). When you have a value you like, press the I key again and choose Rotation. Now it animates.
That’s super-basic stuff, by the way, and these methods are all over the Internet. I suggest you check out youtube and vimeo for video tuts, also blendercookie.com and blenderguru.com have a wealth of recent tutorials that use the new 2.5 interface, and many of those are geared towards beginners. Good luck!
Hi,
Applied the same concept i use hereto this. Attached a simple exampe here… Setting up properties and drivers like in the link you could set up variables for electron velocity and start offset on there orbits.
A useful tip for curves/paths is to move the origin of the curve to match its first vertex. Have the curve and the object that will follow the curve in the same position with or without modifiers/follow path at the zeroth frame.
thank you VERY much!!! you have showed me EXACTLY what i wanted!!! thank you very much!!!
(to benu)
(to batFINGER)
thank you also that is interesting
That’s an interesting technique – thanks for sharing it!