Hey, if you got it, shake it, bro.

Maybe I should also do a tute on modeling and animating a custard pie.   \ ;-D

Sexy tutorial... I believe most folks completely forget about wiring...=D

 

Nice job B, however when I heard the comment you made about the strugle I was tempted to ask a question which will evident as to the bad memories. Could this be used in place of : the Dashpot, or the other constraints and if not why and is there a simpler way to still do the multi cars being pulled like a tandem trailer. I know this sounds painfully familar. But yes I got no where and still need real help in that area.

Eddie,

Check your email.

Sample files attached.

Ehr, back to Bruce's tute. I have a problem with the rotation. Not the first time, though it happened essentially when animated.

I create the first set of segments, link, wire and copy it. First set: fine, second set: fine. Then I perform the last wiring between the two first segments. When I select the first segment of the first set and rotate it, the first segment of the second rotates the other way, as it should, but not the others! It's like the inversion doesn't propagate to the rest of the segments. It's easy to fix but still not what you would expect. Here is a short clip to illustrate the problem.

Do you guys remember oddities in rotation behavior with old versions? (Max 4. Tim, if you're around...) I think I read something about it some months ago but I can't remember where.

Still gmax...

bhnh...I mean Mr. bhnh, (hereto with- to be known as Mr. Wizard in my book)
  Your tuts are such a trip! (I know-you prefer "tutes" LOL) When things get really frustrating, it's just plain fun to run through a couple of them. Thanks!

Almost forgot....Congratulations Cap, I knew you could do it!  J/K
 

Ah.  Thanks, Tim.

bhnh said: I could only get a direct one-to-one ratio on the linkage

Not sure I understand that correctly. I can use any multiplying coefficient in the Wiring Dialog (although, depending on the transform, you have to change the controller to access the XYZ components individually).
But never mind. When a friend asked his teacher about gmax, the guy told him that 1) the only differences between gmax and Max 4 were in the missing features, meaning that either a feature is not there or if it's there, it behaves exactly as it would in Max 4 (otherwise I wouldn't dare post anything in this Max forum); 2) there were quite a lot of glitches with rotation and also the Reference Coordinate Systems, especially when animated.

I just wanted to make sure it wasn't me but it's not important. Don't bother answer this, Bruce, and thanks a lot for your time anyway.

Bnnh. I never tried the Reaction Manager for this. I'll have to look into it. Thanks.

 

Illustration below: Truck and Trailer with Ease Curve.

Truck & Trailer, the setup is very similar. The trailer's pivot is located at the rear axel. It has a Path Constraint for position, and a Look At Constraint for rotation. Its Look At target is the truck's pivot point which is located at the "point" where the trailer would attach to the truck. If you play the animation, you will see it slow down, reverse, then go forward. This is done by first selecting the Percent tracks for both Box01 and Box02, then going to Curves > Apply Ease Curve (Track View menu). This creates an Instanced Ease Curve. All that is necessary is to edit the keys of one of the Ease Curves and the track and trailer move in unison. (Very useful for a long line of roller-coaster cars coming to the top of the first hill. They all need to speed up in unison, even though some have not crested the hill.)

 

SplineIK Truck and Trailer (no illustration)

1. Create the path the truck is to follow.
2. Create the truck and trailer in their correct relative positions.
3. Create a Bone system (Create panel > Systems > Bones) starting at the reat axle, then at the connection point of the trailer to the truck, then at the front axle. Right click to finish.
4. Link the trailer to the first Bone. Link the truck to the second Bone.
5. (From the reference.)
Select the bone or object where you want to the solver to start. (Select the first Bone, the one in the trailer.)

Choose Animation menu > IK Solvers > Spline IK Solver. In the viewport, move the cursor to the bone or object
where you want the chain to end and click that bone. (The last bone you created.) Then move the cursor to the
spline and click it.

The bone structure jumps to the spline and takes its shape, and a helper is created on the spline at each
vertex. A position constraint is automatically assigned to the root bone to constraint it to the helper/vertex at
that end of the spline.

6. Open the Motion panel. The first bone is still selected. Turn on Auto Key. Scroll down to the Path
Parameters rollout.
7. Go to frame you want the animation to end.
8. Animate the % Along Path value.

In this method the truck and trailer always maintain the correct relative distance apart.