Orbit around an object

ccsmith7

I am trying to build a project that will allow planets to orbit around the Sun. For an example I have the sun in the middle of the scene want earth and moon to orbit around the Sun and the moon to orbit around the earth. I am using Solar System Super Bundle. Any help would be deeply appreciated. Thanks in advance.

mavante

For each planet, create a Null (name it something like "[PlanetName] Null"), and place it in the center of the Sun object. Then with the planet that has that name in position relative to the Sun that you want it, parent that planet to that Null. (In the Scene tab, you can just drag the planet's name onto the Null's name to parent it). If you then rotate the Null around its Y-axis, the planet object will rotate in a perfect circle around the Sun. For an animation, you will have to keyframe the Null at Frame 0 where you want the rotation to begin, and later in the Timeline keyframe where in time you want the rotation to end.

Once you get that down with one planet, you'll be able to extrapolate how to do it with the others.

ccsmith7

Thank you very much

mavante

ccsmith7 said:

Thank you very much

 

You're quite welcome. By the way, you can apply the same principle to a moon around a planet, group those, and then parent that whole group to the Null for that planet, so you get the planet rotating around the Sun while the moon simultaneously rotates around the planet. Using different rotation keyframes for the moon's animation, you can control the relative speeds of rotation, which is also true for each individual planet. Let us know how it works out.