Snowspeeder 3D Model: Rigging and Animation Test

Today I have been continuing with my 3D model, built in Modo. I fully intend to animate it once all the building and texturing work is complete. Having never rigged a 3D model before, I set off on a journey of discovery on Youtube - it's amazing how much you can learn there.

Strange new terms like centers, pivots and locators entered my vocabulary as I wrestled with how to animate pistons, yet have the top and bottom parts stick to their respective geometries.

This is how the items in question look on a plastic model.

Source

I first created the base geometry - I will improve on this in the near future, but wanted to figure out the rigging first.

In this picture you can see locators: the two red / green / white crosshairs. The white circle is a rotation controller for the flap. Each locator has its double in exactly the same position. One is pinned to the anchor point at the back of the ship, its twin is anchored to the top of the piston. Another is anchored to the bottom of the piston, its twin to the flap.

Modo allows you to constrain locators to each other, by position, rotation, or by pointing at each other. Therefore I got the bottom piston locator to always look at the top piston locator and vice versa.

Now when either flap is dropped or lifted, the piston operates how it should. Pictures are all well and good, but animations are better, right? Well - I had to take a crash course in animating in Modo, but I managed to render out this short sequence.

I spent all day on rigging, animating and then rendering this short five second sequence. The rigging took the longest, but I must say it is the most fun this geek has had for a while. It really makes the model come alive and has given me ideas where else to use these techniques.

Thanks for looking.

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