How do I create rotating propellers and hinged control surfaces?

wdsmith1959

I've searched online in vain attempting to find any tutorials whatsoever on how to create rotating propellers for 3D aircraft models in Hexagon. I want to do a rotary engine. Rotary engines rotated with the propeller. The French La-Rhone and the German Oberursel engines were basically the same engine, and the entire thing spun with the prop. I have no idea how to create this in Hexagon. Also, how do I create doors that open and close, and control surfaces on aircraft, such as the horizontal stabilizers, rudders, etc.?

Richard Haseltine

You should remember that Hexagon is a modeller, not an application for rigging or animation. If you want to make things move you need a suitable application (such as DAZ Studio or Carrara) in which to import your model, and you need to keep the bits that will move separately as distinct mesh objects in Hexagon as you build them so that they don't mangle the mesh when you set the rigging up in the next application.

patience55

In a nutshell;

As far as the modeling goes, the "project" can be the entire plane. But any parts to be moveable need to be a separate "group". And no "loose parts" that are not meant to have bones in the rigging. Do not group the parts. So if an item is to have 5 bones, there needs to be 5 items in the Scene Tree.

Then the item is exported out of Hexagon to your folder in the desired Runtime > Geometries place.
And in D/S brought in via the Skeleton/Figure Setup tab. Select legacy rigging [unless you want to do weight mapping], arrange the direction of the bones and 'create' the figure.
Use the Joint Editor for minor bone ajustments, colour the surfaces [not with shaders] and export out the .cr2 file to your folder under Characters.