How to animate a Chain attached to Gear Wheels.

[B.R.Rajeev]

Hey guys,

I needed some help :

I am doing this animation where in i need to model / animate an industrial machine, which has Cog/ Gear Wheels and has a chain attached to it .

Could anyone please tell me a way wherein i could animate the chain and the gear wheels , so that each would correspond to the others movement.

Thanks...

[RaeTracer]

In Maya you can do a Set Driven Key (not sure what it's called in other programs) to automatically animate one object when you move another. So, you could set the gear to drive the chain... key them at the extreme positions, and it would go around on its own. Then you'd only have to keyframe the gear.

If you have sketches/ roughs of this, it might help.

Rae

[LittleJohn]

I think your problems has more than one solutions...If you work in 3dsmax you could use the reactor for dynamic solution (reactors works great with mechanical stuff). Or you could use expression controllers....Make the gears/cogs rotation to control a path constrain controller which is set for the chain, then through the curve editor add a waveform float controller to chain`s vertical position, to simulate bouncing, and you`re done...If you`re more into IK , make an IK chain for your chain (), and then add a IKspline solver to control the movement...

Hope it helps...

[B.R.Rajeev]

thanks for the comments guys, I forgot to mention earlier that I use 3DS Max 4.2 , so i think i would try and use reactor or IK and try to solve it. If i do have any doubts i will get back to you.

thank you again ....