Multiple pivot points for animations | Forums

[Fuuldrin]

Hi,

I'm currently building a flying robot, made with multiple small parts that have obviously different position / rotation values. The top part of the robot is a turret, and I have glued all the parts with a pivot point in the center of the turret. I made some animations with OPE and it works correctly. The bottom part is made of gears, and they are rotating around themselves (therefore, they each have their own pivot point at the center of themselves). Again, so far it works with OPE. All those animations are simultaneously happening.

Now, I want to move and / or rotate the entire robot, and I'm using another OPE, however since all pivot points are in different places all of the parts are moving in different directions. I would like to know if I can use another pivot point for the entire robot? It means that a single object would move according to the pivot point A for the animation A, and according to the pivot point B for the animation B that is happening at the same time.
If not maybe there is another solution, so please let me know if you have some ideas. I could upload a private video of the robot on my YT channel if it helps.

Thank you in advance!

[IImayneII]

I think your best off with something like this:

Use a 'rigid' part of the robot as a point to attach other objects on with OPE. Use the object glue tool (with manual pivot) and glue it to the main body (could be multiple objects). It's easier to use the tool than to select objects and glueing them because with the tool the pivot will always be the same, instead of sometimes changing orientation when you use the other method.

Now, to add objects on your robot (let's say an arm) I would glue a dummy object to the main rigid body and use the coordinates from that to spawn the (pivot of the) arm on. So basically you just spawn the arm on a certain coordinate (in this example the dummy object) with the OPE, because the dummy object is glued to the main body the arm will folow the main body(dummy object) when it moves.

If you plan on rotating the object (arm) the setup will be a bit more complex depending on what animations you want to do. If it's just facing the same way you can easily use the rotation coordinates of a part of the main body to link to the arm so it keeps the same rotation.

If you need a better explenation let me know


and if you want to easily make the robot move, use dummy objects to spawn him on. for example going from dummy object 1 to 2 is easier to adjust than doing it with data sources in my opinion.

[Fuuldrin]

Sir, you made my day It worked like a charm, thank you!! Now I have this very promising looking robot that I will reuse over the course of my track (I need to work on particles now, but they can be moved like a part of the robot, it's amazing!)

Bonus question: all of those animations are already using about 50 cards (half of it being all those object info data source cards for the positions of dummies), and it's quite messy since my screen is entirely covered with blue and green dotted lines... Do you have any advice regarding how to organize all the cards, and what should I save as favorite? The entire robot or I do part by part? Maybe I put as favorite the set of cards to make an animation and another for a rotation?

[IImayneII]

For favorites, probably not the whole robot since a favorite with alot of objects can corrupt and it will crash your game when you go in that favorite tab again. (unless they fixed it, but I don't think that happened)

What you can do is just make a basic setup first, save that for later and then tie everything to the robot. Or just remake a basic setup to favorite since you are already working on it. It's really worth it imo, I made some different ones that speed up making animations alot. I even just made a favorite with alot of triggers/events/data sources I regularly use so I don't have to go trough the menu's everytime.


Organizing is whatever you prefer. Unless I use a favorited setup my logic in game is usually very messy too so.. If you are certain you aren't changing anything in the setup you can just put them ontop of each other if you like. And you can turn off those lines too in the editor so you can only see your cards (in the wheel menu - hold dpad down). I don't really find that helpfull tough since I rather see where everything is connected to.

[Fuuldrin]

Thanks a lot for all the information! I'll keep at it and eventually I'll make a track worth of the forumers time

[IImayneII]

Don't worry, everone started at the same place. Being eager to learn new things is the best approach. If you are on PC feel free to add me and ask me questions there too if you run into problems.