Can anyone help me with animation in general and animating cars?

First things first. Thank you a bunch for any help, attention, advice,
blessings and prayers that you give. It is most appreciated.

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.

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.

Whew! Now I'm no physics expert. But I do hold a PhD and a black belt in
ambition. If I'm tackling more than I can chew as a newbie just slap me in
da face. Otherwise let 'er rip. Feel free to hit www.willparis.com with
anything that can help.

Thank you all.

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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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I've posted some scene code in povray.text.scene-files which does nearly 
what you asked for. The code takes a spline path for a single wheel to 
follow, and rolls it along the path, rotating it correctly for the 
distance it follows. Varying velocity is done by adjusting the spline 
path. For a car, you may want to integrate the distances each wheel 
travels, otherwise the individual wheels will "slip".

-- 
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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Will Paris wrote:
>Can anyone help me with animation in general and animating cars?
>
>First things first. Thank you a bunch for any help, attention, advice,
>blessings and prayers that you give. It is most appreciated.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>Whew! Now I'm no physics expert. But I do hold a PhD and a black belt in
>ambition. If I'm tackling more than I can chew as a newbie just slap me in
>da face. Otherwise let 'er rip. Feel free to hit www.willparis.com with
>anything that can help.
>
>Thank you all.
>


Dist/Circumference * 360 = angle

It can not get any simpler than that.

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