Stiring Undercarriage
animated giff- (give it a moment to load)
Another issue that needs resolution is the timescale- how long does it take the wheels to completely fold? I've assumed 2.3 seconds- highly optimistic I know - again an assumption based on expediencey. In reality maybe 45 to 55 seconds is a figure i read recently.
Rendered in 3D Studio Max as a series of still frames & merged as in Adobe ImageReady. This file will take a little time to download- but it is better than the full animation which is 800Kb, a good couple of minutes with an average net connection.
Some time was spent with the animation - sorting out lever lengths, pivot points and also a wild goose chase with inverse kinematics. Each time I though I'd worked out the right combination of linkages, bind-to-follows and insertion of dummy objects I got dependancy loop errors. So this animation was animated using forward kinematics and seperate parts were moved to follow the main action.