Aircraft Rotary Engine: modo 401 Animation
Training Video
In this tutorial we take a close look at many of the new animation set-up and rigging tools in modo 401. These tools allow us to rig and animate mechanically-based objects using constraints, inverse kinematics and dynamic parenting.
This project explains how to rig a rotary engine. The rotary engine was a crazy and yet beautiful piece of engineering that powered aircraft in the early years of aviation. Most famously known for powering fighter aircraft in WWI, they spun with the propeller at tremendous speed thus expelling oil in the face of the pilot and making the aircraft difficult to handle due to the gyroscopic effect of the engine spinning. The unusual way the engine worked led to a unique design which we look at in detail in this project via a cutaway model that reveals how all the elements of the engine moved and interacted with each other.
The focus of the tutorial is automation. When finished the entire engine rig can be driven by a single keyframed channel. This is an ideal tutorial for anyone who wants to dig into what has now evolved into very capable animation system within modo.
The videos are narrated in English and are most appropriate for people with some modo experience.
Detailed Descriptions of Videos in Album
Video Part 01 – Rotary Engine
In this first video we start by rigging the engine’s pistons using a combination of positional, directional and intersect constraints. We also make great use of many of the new set-up tools to ensure that Items are aligned correctly, and look at how to minimize scene clutter during the process. We finish by looking at channel linking.
Video Part 02 – Rotary Engine
In this second video we focus on the Rotary Engine’s unusual system for driving the cylinder valves. To re-create this we utilise path constraints, Inverse Kinematics, and take a deeper dive into channel linking using different types of channels to drive Items and Deformers. We finish by exposing the controls that are needed to operate the rig. We accomplish this by utilizing display objects, user defined custom channels and channel hauling.
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