I've created a model of a six-legged robot, with a distinctly "insectoid"
look to it. I'd like to animate it now, but I'm having difficulty planning
the motion of the legs.

If anyone has an animation of a six-legged creature in motion (or better
yet, the source code for the motions of those legs), or a tutorial on the
subject, I'd love to see it.


Hoping,
Wykan

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On Mon, 12 Apr 1999 02:20:51 -0400, "Wykan" <wyk### [at] siscomnet> wrote:

>I've created a model of a six-legged robot, with a distinctly "insectoid"
>look to it. I'd like to animate it now, but I'm having difficulty planning
>the motion of the legs.
>
>If anyone has an animation of a six-legged creature in motion (or better
>yet, the source code for the motions of those legs), or a tutorial on the
>subject, I'd love to see it.

Check out "Death to Rusty" by John VanSickle in the last IRTC
animation round (at http://www.irtc.org).  This anim contains just
such a robot.  I do not remember whether he included source but if
not, he is a regular on comp.graphics.rendering .raytracing and he
might be willing to discuss it if you ask.  Incidentally if your local
library has a selection of books by Ian Stewart, he has discussed
walking gaits in general and relatively simple neural networks to
coordinate them more than once in an entertaining and accessible
manner.

Jerry Anning
clem "at" dhol "dot" com

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Thanks for the tip!


Wykan

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Wykan wrote:

> Greetings -
>
> I've created a model of a six-legged robot, with a distinctly "insectoid"
> look to it. I'd like to animate it now, but I'm having difficulty planning
> the motion of the legs.
>
> If anyone has an animation of a six-legged creature in motion (or better
> yet, the source code for the motions of those legs), or a tutorial on the
> subject, I'd love to see it.

I remember seing something a while back on research being done. In most
cases, it was elegantly simple. You just have two tripods walking. Two legs
on one side, and one on the other.


1    4
 \  /
  \/
2----5
  /\
 /  \
3   6


Just animate 1,5 & 3 as a synchronized set, and 4,2 &6 as another.

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Wykan wrote:


>
> I've created a model of a six-legged robot, with a distinctly "insectoid"
> look to it. I'd like to animate it now, but I'm having difficulty planning
> the motion of the legs.
>
> If anyone has an animation of a six-legged creature in motion (or better
> yet, the source code for the motions of those legs), or a tutorial on the
> subject, I'd love to see it.
>
> Hoping,
> Wykan

I'm working on the same thing. Trying to develop paths for the joints. An IK
macro for Pov will do the trick.

Here are some points to ponder.
the legs have these variables.
* phase: what part of the cyclic motion is the foot in. (By foot I mean the
end point of the leg)
* direction: = 1 or -1 depending on weather it is the left or right leg. a
value of -1 will just mirror the leg.

Consider the leg as a straight element with bones and joints.

o--o--o--(  )--o--o--o  <-this is the cross section of the bug lying flat on
its belly.
the o is a joint. Now think of the path of each joint. It will be around a
sphere of its previous joint. The foot moves in this particular fashion.
  ________
 /                \        < a semicircle and then a flat line. and it keeps
on and on
|                  |
-------------
all you have to do now is give formula of the joint positions as a function of
the variable PHASE and give phase offsets for each legs

I'm still working on the leg joint positions. Will let you know soon.
Mrinal

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Did I-Wei ever do anything with six legs? His work is classic for TruSpace!
I learned a lot from his animations.

GrimDude
vos### [at] arkansasnet

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