how do you make animated parts???

[fusedbean89]

how would you make a animated part such as a raising a flag???

[wasml]

Lots of good info here: Mod Development Links Compilation - I'm think there's a animation tutorial in there somewhere (lots of links).

[Red Iron Crown]

Moved this over to Modelling and Texturing Discussion, you should find better help for this here.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Warning wall of text follows
 

19 hours ago, fusedbean89 said:

how would you make a animated part such as a raising a flag???

Hi I saw the thread in which this idea was proposed  to you earlier on today

Creating an animated part depends on what software you intend to use to make the animation, they are all subtly different but usually end in the same result, for example , many many animated parts are made in blender, lots of parts are mad in 3ds max, quite a few in maya, and there's several other common modding tools that are used by KSP modders. Personally if it's a simple animation I'll do it all in unity, like an opening door or such , but if it is more complex requiring some rigging (IK etc) I will use 3ds max, as I'm fairly comfy with max rigging.

Now for a simple flag unfurl, as as first animation I'd be tempted to first make the flag pole, a cylinder with a bump on top will do, then make your flag part, noting that, IF you want to be able to use stock style KSP flags the flag dimensions need to be correct for the flag dimensions, can't remember offhand what they are.

  Then you would map a flag texture onto your flag part, doing both sides, then map your pole (). Make the flag a child of the pole, placing the flag in the position you'd like it to deploy.

Now most software that will make animations will use Key Frames, these are small bites of time. Before starting any animation ( bearing in mind this is your first go) Move the flag pivot to the edge closest to the pole, just the pivot, then scale your flag, using that pivot as a center, until the flag just disappears into the flag pole. Stop

Right it can either go well or badly from now on, for personal preference I try never to actually grab any geometry when I'm animating, I always use dummies, dummies are for this purpose, like a little handle you can grab easily that is linked to the flags pivot, arranged so that when you scale the dummy, the flag will scale the same amount.

OK so you don't want to learn about dummies just yet, so  skip fwd,  Now use whichever method is needed to start making an animation in your chosen software, probably some arrangement of key frames, set the length of time you want the animation to take,  and make a key, some will have an auto key, but you'll find that out I'm sure.        

Now drag the time bar to 5seconds after that point and grab the flag pivot and very carefully scale it out a bit. DO NOT DO THIS in any view apart from the left or right side views, Orthographic or Perspective views will cause the scale to be in all directions rather than just laterally. and press the set key button or whatever it uses,  this will lock that position into the animation

At this point I ran off to see if this would actually work this way and resemble something passable  and yes it does.

Anyway Continue along the timeline adding keys and scaling the flag until it is back at full size., make sure you save everything and then export to unity, don't forget to check that the exporter options are actually set to export animations..

Here's a link to the fbx that made the flag in the spoiler, you can put that straight into unity or your modelling app and see how its put together and 

if you get stuck on the next bit I'll be around

Spoiler

 

 

Edited March 14, 2016 by SpannerMonkey(smce)

[fusedbean89]

is there a video of this process words are

confusing