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Junior Member
Trouble making a Piston OPE look like it's driving a gear!!
Hey everyone, I'm new to building and working on my first track and cant figure this animation out. So far I have 2 object position events (1 spinning a gear & 1 operating a piston up and down). I'm trying to connect the 2 events with a rod to give the impression that as the piston operates the rod is driving the gear it's attached to to spin. It seems that as the piston pushes down the rod breaks off or gets jammed up because the gear OPE isn't in sync with it or it is in the wrong position. I just can't find the right mix of physics joints or OPE's to make it look like the piston is driving the gear to spin. If anyone can help me out I'd really appreciate it. If you need more of a description I'll try to draw up a picture, it's kinda hard to put some ideas into words. One of the BEST games I ever played and the community is awesome!! Thanks Red Lynx and the community for all the fun-filled tracks!!
P.S. Good luck to those of you racing the TWC 2013!!
Thanks
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Senior Member
Re: Trouble making a Piston OPE look like it's driving a gea
is it possible to use physics? close enough to the dl because with ope it will be hard, the rod movement starts to get complex
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Senior Member
Re: Trouble making a Piston OPE look like it's driving a gea
You could place a dummy object on the wheel where it should connect to the rod and get that points' Y position. Then set the Pivot Point of the rod (make it a glue group if none) at the upper joint. Use OPE to set the rod's Y position to that of the wheel joint, plus the length of the rod, then mess around with a Curved Data Source to get the rotation looking good. If the angle needs to be perfect though, you could probably set up some math using angles.
hope this is right cause I wanna look smrt
)
If you must use physics:
Attach the top of the rod to a Dummy Object using a Rotational Joint
Attach the Dummy Object to the machine or other using a slider
Attach the bottom of the rod to the wheel using a Rotational Joint
Attach the wheel to the machine using a Rotational Joint with Motor ON to spin it, or rotate the wheel with an OPE.
Set the Rod & Dummy Object to Physics ON
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Junior Member
Re: Trouble making a Piston OPE look like it's driving a gea
Thanks for the info guys, very helpful!! I'm gonna give it a shot later on tonight and I'll let you know if I get it working. Thanks again, really appreciate it!!
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Junior Member
Re: Trouble making a Piston OPE look like it's driving a gea
I tried getting that to work, I'm closer but still off on something. I'm not sure how to put in that math formula you supplied me with either, it's been years since I last messed around with Cosine and Tangent formulas. Just not sure what operators and data sources I need. I have to learn those a little more to really start to understand what items I need, when I need them and how to link them properly. Thanks again, and I'll keep you posted as to when I get it working.
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Junior Member
Re: Trouble making a Piston OPE look like it's driving a gea
Thought I'd give you another update, I figured it out!! I accomplished the exact look I was going for by looking at it from another perspective, instead of the piston powering the gear to spin, I did the opposite. The setup is below if your curious how I did it. This setup is working but, I haven't tweaked the Durations, Start and End points, etc. If you want a picture of it I can try to make something up if my wording isn't making sense!
- 1 OPE on the gear (Looping, Duration set around 10 seconds I think, so the gear can go thru a whole cycle/spin without resetting)
- Rotational joint on each end of the connecting rod (Rod to gear & Rod to Box at bottom of piston & adjusted the pivots as needed.
- A Slider joint (Up/Down) where the rod meets the box at the bottom of the piston (Box is glued to piston rods with Physics ON)
- A Slider joint (Up/Down) connecting the piston rods to the piston shell approximately halfway up the piston rods to stabilize it.
- Disabled Collision on joints and joint strengths are still at 0.
I think that's it! Now, I just have to figure out how I want to turn the Physics and OPE On & Off and make sure I don't put the setup too far out from the physics bubble!
Thanks for the suggestions guys, much appreciated!! I'll learn soon enough!! It's all TRIALS
& Error!! Thanks again!!