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I do realize that the title is ambiguous as I'm not too sure how to summarize the issue I'm facing.

What I would like to do now is to set the mechanical movements so that I can freely adjust them during animation.

enter image description here

I have done some pairing and adjusted the origin of the parent object. The rotation is done along the local x axis of the parent object. However, the only way I am able to revert back to the original rotation would be by undo-ing. If I were to apply the rotation beforehand, I would lose the ability to rotate about the local x axis. This is destructive and would be a pain to deal with during animation.

How do this and at the same time still be able to revert to the original default rotation without spamming undo?

Sohail Nordin
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  • if each object is parented, they should have their default rotation values at 0 (check the N panel to make sure that it's the case), so you could bring the rotation back to 0 with a simple Alt R. Another solution would be to use a bone for each object, in that case you can easily come back to the default rotation with alt R. – moonboots Oct 24 '21 at 07:50
  • @moonboots I'll check out the bone method, but for your first solution, the default rotation is not 0. If its 0 then it means i've applied the rotation so i won't be able to access the local axis. Movement 1 would not be possible then. – Sohail Nordin Oct 24 '21 at 07:56
  • alright will do, thanks – Sohail Nordin Oct 24 '21 at 08:04
  • I meant maybe you should parent this object to an empty to do the other rotation: empty is parented to main part, object is parent to empty – moonboots Oct 24 '21 at 08:11
  • @moonboots can you suggest any thread on the bone method? Can't seem to find much info on it – Sohail Nordin Oct 24 '21 at 08:56
  • You just need to create an armature, align the bones with the axis you want, parent them to each other, but maybe a simple empty would be fine – moonboots Oct 24 '21 at 09:00
  • alright so what i did was i used an empty. To align with the axis all i have to do is copy the rotation of the object to the empty right? – Sohail Nordin Oct 24 '21 at 09:04
  • if the object rotation is not 0/0/0, yes – moonboots Oct 24 '21 at 09:29
  • note that you should better keep all your object aligned with the global orientation, then parent to empties, and tilt the empties the way you want so that your objects are orientate the way you want, it will allow you to still be able to correctly rotate each object, Blender struggles to create rotations on local axis, see my answer here, it may help: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/129834/how-do-i-rotate-an-object-along-its-own-axis-windmill/129836 – moonboots Oct 24 '21 at 09:35
  • well my last comment is mostly useful if you want to animate – moonboots Oct 24 '21 at 09:42
  • I'm not sure that I understand the question, but wouldn't keyframing be what you want? You can keyframe various rotations to "save" the pose. If you want, you can store these keyframes on frames 0, -1, etc, and you can copy/paste those keyframes into any frame you want to "apply" the pose. – Nathan Oct 24 '21 at 16:48

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