In article <3fb856f3@news.povray.org>,
 "Will Paris" <wil### [at] sbcglobalnet> wrote:

> I want animate car models so that the distance traveled reflects the
> rotation speed of the wheels, as if it were actually covering the distance
> of land equal to the circumference of the tire. I also want to show
> realistic frame of reference for fancy rims as the cars speed up and slow
> down. While I'm at it I will probably need to turn the wheels and things as
> well.

You just pretty much said what you need to do. Translate it so it 
travels a distance equal to its circumference for every revolution. The 
animation tutorial in the manual does just this, only with a ball 
instead of a wheel. Taking changing velocity into account is a little 
more complex, but not extremely so. It would be simple to do with a 
simple simulation: Set up the car position with a spline. Figure out the 
car's distance from its previous location, and how much the wheel should 
have rotated over that distance.
I'm not sure what you are thinking of by "realistic frame of reference".


> I am probably going to be using a combination of open-source apps: Blender,
> POV-Ray, OpenFX, trueSpace 3.2, Alice and/or Terragen. I am still learning
> 3D, but POV-Ray and Blender seem to be really, really great apps and great
> for the price. I also have access to "Free learning" versions of commercial
> apps such as Lightwave Discovery edition, Maya Personal Learning edition and
> Houdini Apprentice. I also have a friend that has access to Bryce 5 and
> Poser 4.

Overkill...this can be done with a simple POV script. If you want to use 
one of the other packages, this is the wrong place to ask for help using 
them. Otherwise...I'm not really sure why you mentioned them.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
http://tag.povray.org/

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