The piston elements were all parented up the line using the “follow path” option and then I wanted to make them move together so I added a “track to” constraint (the blue arrows) from the joints at the fixed ends. I want the top joint to track the outer end of the lower piston and the lower joint to track the anchor on the upper piston (red box). The problem is that no matter what settings I use the elements of the two pistons go off in different directions and rotations. The screen capture was taken with the tracking directions and up both set to z which puts everything back where it should be but with the constraint inactive (red window).
At one time I almost had it right but elements were flapping round in the z axis likebranches on a tree.
Also, is it possible to put some sort of IK on the foot so that I don’t have to extend each element of the piston by hand?
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have done everything I can think of and done a pretty thorough net search before coming here.
I’m currently very new to animating in Blender, but you do want to use bones and an IK on the foot, it’ll make the animating process a snap. All you need is a rig (which is the more complicated part) to control your landing gear.
Actually, I seem to have found a solution by adding a copy rotation constraint to the next child down the line and setting everything to world space in the dialogue box. Thank you for trying to help me anyway. I appreciate it.
Also, once your post count is higher than 10, you shouldn’t have any issues uploading files to this site. Until then, you may want to consider using a site like pasteall.org.
There is no armature. Is that something I SHOULD have? Since there is no flexing of the elements of the piston I just made a string, parent to child down the line with a follow path option selected. Being self-taught I don’t do things the way others do. You don’t know what it is you don’t know do you hehe?
