Animating landing gear in Max

[Nils]

Can anyone explain how to animate a landing gear in Max? I want to animate the gear for the Skyraider, where parts are moving in several different directions, as the whole gear does a simultanously swinging movement from extended to retracted or vice versa?

A cylinder pulls up a strut that simultanously pushes up another strut which then pulls up the main leg, and that also rotates the lower part of the leg with the wheel itself 90 degrees up into the wing?

For instance the actuating cylinder must have to pivots I guess, one rotating axis for the cylinder attachment/rotating point and one for the cylinder rod, which then needs to be a sliding joint for starters. But how do I lock the position of a pivot point so that the cylinder is forced into a rotation instead of beeing moved out of position? which happens now.. when I set the pivots and link parts together, the whole sh**t moves around instead of neatly folding and pulling other parts along into the movement...

[cobra6]

I always use bones for this kinds of stuff. Get their (the bones) pivots to exactly match your land gears pivots and just plainly link each gear part to a separate bone. You have to plan the movement chain really well in advance so you exactly know what part to attach to which bone.

You can also use multiple bone chains (With IK chains and control points at the end) by just linking each IK chain control point to for instance a specific bone in another chain.

Depending on which MAX version you got I can send you my HIND landing gear so you can take a look at what I mean. You need MAX 2009 for that file though.

Cobra 6

[Nils]

Thanks for your reply Cobra. This makes sense to me. I'm away for the moment (until the 12th) but I will try it once I have a chance, can the sliding joint also be on a bone, or put in another way, can any kind of joints/movements be linked in such way to a bone?

[cobra6]

You could also use springs (very easy and straightforward to use) for sliding objects I guess, although I have not done sliding parts myself. Or try if you can limit a bones movement to one axis.

Cobra 6

[Nils]

Cheers mate, I'll try that

[simjoy]

you could try reading this
http://www.3dvalley.com/tutorials/ri...-3d-studio-max

it describes two techniques, one using bones, one without, for animating a simple robotic arm which you could adapt to a more complicated rig. you can use the "look at" constraint to align the pistons so that they slide in and out properly.

[Nils]

Hey that's great, it seems to do exacly what I want for the initial movement, so it just a matter to find out the rest, I'm sure the Bones Ik will help me with the rest here.
Thanks alot guys!

[TRM]

If you haven't seen or heard about Craft Animations Director Studio for Max,C4d,and MAYA take a look at their great work savers. There are some free ones bundled with it. For me it is just a wish list but watch the Plane rigger demo video here and you can see what a great tool it really is. They have a tool for just about any animation you would need.

http://www.craftanimations.com/defau...airplane-free/

[BattlemasterXP]

In case you are a registered user at "The Area",
you should watch THISvideos. Otherwise you can create an account for free. Although it is for "architecture visualization", that guy explains a lot basic stuff.

[victorhogan]

Thanks. I will try this