Forum - Craft Animations - 3d animation tools

I need to animate a mobile drilling rig. It is about 57 feet (17.4 meters) long and 8.8 feet (2.67 meters) wide. This is a large vehicle; but, has no 5th wheel. It's kind of like a bus but very top heavy. I uniformly scaled the 4Wheeler ext. rig up to match the length of the vehicle. Then, I scaled the rig along one axis to make it narrow and match the scene vehicle. I scaled the wheels down appropriately. With everything linked, I pushed the record button. The animation starts on frame "0." At frame "1" the CA rig scales its width back out - to the width that it had after I first scaled it up to match the length of the scene model. The scene model, which had not been scaled, also, scaled out to the width of the Craft Animation rig. I'm only using a box prop for the scene vehicle. Why is the CA vehicle jumping to it's last scaled size when the animation starts and how can I prevent that from happening?

fonhorn wrote:I need to animate a mobile drilling rig. It is about 57 feet (17.4 meters) long and 8.8 feet (2.67 meters) wide. This is a large vehicle; but, has no 5th wheel. It's kind of like a bus but very top heavy. I uniformly scaled the 4Wheeler ext. rig up to match the length of the vehicle. Then, I scaled the rig along one axis to make it narrow and match the scene vehicle. I scaled the wheels down appropriately. With everything linked, I pushed the record button. The animation starts on frame "0." At frame "1" the CA rig scales its width back out - to the width that it had after I first scaled it up to match the length of the scene model. The scene model, which had not been scaled, also, scaled out to the width of the Craft Animation rig. I'm only using a box prop for the scene vehicle. Why is the CA vehicle jumping to it's last scaled size when the animation starts and how can I prevent that from happening?

Hello Fonhorn and welcome to the forum! The reason why Craft 4-Wheeler Extended snaps back when you start to record is that you have scaled it non-uniformly. If you rig it just the way you explained first but this time don't scale it along that one axis, always scale it uniformly only. Then scale down the wheels and try to record again and you should be good to go.

I could also give a little tip. If you begin by scalinig the body uniformingly so that it matches the length of your car (and thereby setting the correct world scale). To modify the dummy itself you then enter vertex mode and manipulate the mesh to whatever shape you need.

The 4WExt is not unstable, but it can be set to behave any way you like, even "unstable like". To understand which parameters to change for the Autonomous Mode the best way to learn this is by looking at the changes the corresponding presets make. Automatic driving is quite advanced so there are some parameters that need to be changed in harmony to make it work properly.

Good luck!
// Luigi TA