More than one pivot point?
Deke
Posts: 1,631
in The Commons
Can this be done? I'd like to animate a cylinder waddling to one side then the other. But that would take two pivot points.
I see there is a green and a red icon in the joint editor tool. Are they both pivot points?
Comments
The green is the centre (pivot) point, the red is the end point (used to aid alignment, and so the twist axis and point at behaviour). It is not, as far as I ama ware, possible to haf two pivot points as such, though rigging and use of IK might alow you to achieve a similar effect
Could pareting the thing to a null or group somehow achieve this?
Thanks. I was thinking that the answer may be in parenting to a couple nulls, each with a pivot point on one side and the other.
The use of nulls isn't quite working as one item can't be parented to two different parents.
Can you not have two identical cylinders on the timeline, each one with a different pivot point, then in each frame hide the one where the pivot point is not used.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't know it would work as I'd still have to match the two cylinders sothey are in the same pose when switching form one to the other...that would be as difficult as just dealing with one cylinder.
That is a very interesting idea for Daz Studio.
I have such possibility in Unity, just need to explore it more.
In Blender one can use rigid body joints
and it is possible to have multiple of them at a single object.
At least one of the objects needs to be a physical object
(rigid body, dynamic or soft body).
I think you could do it with two (or more) nulls, but you'd have to reorder them in the scene tab each time you want to swap pivots.
Say you have an object and position two nulls on it as pivot1 and pivot 2. You want to start by pivoting on pivot 1, so you arrange things in the scene tab like this:
Pivot1 -> Object -> Pivot2
So Pivot1 is the parent of the object, which is the parent of Pivot2. You cn move the object around by manipulating Pivot1, and Pivot2 will move with it.
Now you want to switch pivots. You unparent everything (but don't move anything) and reorder it like this:
Pivot2 -> Object -> Pivot1
It's a bit cumbersome, but I think it would work.
That's an interesting idea, but it coul be tedious having to reorder for each "step" or rotation the cylinder makes.
Just wonder, if it is really necessary to have two pivot points
to animate cylinder waddling to one side then the other.
Maybe, there is some other workaround, like using the Timeline
and create keyframes for the cylinder's rotation.
If I were the OP, I would either go for rigging it or creating 2 morphs in Blender (with symmetry), then import them back to DS for animation.
More discussions about pivot points:
How do I center and set pivot points for objects?
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/205971
Is it possible to change the pivot point of an object?
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/59974
Adjusting Pivot Points on Objects in Daz Studio