I need help with design and animation a hydraulic cylinder
Turk_WLF
Posts: 177
I want to do a mechanical animation with a hydraulic cylinder. I’m wondering is there a way I can fixed one end (of the hydraulic cylinder) so it just pivots up/down and the other end fixed to another part that also pivots up/down and slides in/out as needed.
I’m sure someone has an idea.
If you have any ideas on how to do it, I’ll need a step by step guide. By the way I never use Bones (as in making my out &/or Target Helper Object)
Comments
You're right, you don't need bone for a cylinder to work. A group with constraint (no rotation, translation on 1 axis) should be enough for the in-out part.
Now, the problem is that group (or bone for that matter) are working in a tree. So, if the end part cannot be part of that tree (for instance, because it's a fixed part), you need something else. That's been already discussed and SparrowHawke has a nice solution (using point at and track modifiers.) He also has a Cling modifier in his laboratory, but I haven't tested it.
Also discussed here
If I read your post correctly, I think this is what your after. (Hopefully there is an animation attached to this post.) I modeled the piston in two pieces. The lower part has the hot point positioned where the piston should pivot. Same with the upper part. In addition the upper part has a "Track" modifier in the Y and Z axis so that it follows the circular motion of the round piece (Spin modifier). Both parts of the piston have a Point At modifier applied so that they always point in the direction of each other.
I moved the pieces far enough apart to show that they are separate. Normally you'd want them closer together.
P