animating parts with anglelimit mates?

I'm animating assembly that have their range of motion controlled by
anglelimit mates and I'm running into many horrendous problems.

For some reason when repositioning parts in animator the angle limit
mates will a: flip b: invert c: violate their min/max angles. This
same assembly moves perfectly when in the model tab and it is properly
mated.

In a related question: I need an animation where unfortunately, 1
subassembly moves from point a to b then stops - then an access panel
that is attached to the previous assembly needs to open - but in order
to do this I need to 'freeze' the first subassembly as the transfer of
motion will shift the first sa back towards it's starting point. You
can't change mates without animator redefining the entire timeline so
the only solution I've found is to render 2 seperate animations so you
can fix sa's the way you need to. Am I missing something?

change of topoic:
I noticed in sp2 2007 that my photoworks help wont open? Also,
animator used to have an independent help file in the help menu -now
gone?

TIA

Zander

 

Ok I found the animator help file (embedded in sw help now)

 

Hi Z,

In my limited experience of animator the one thing I've found helps is to
copy the key-point if you want something to stay where it is while something
esle moves. So if you find something suddenly moving where you dont want it
to, find the movement key in the animator thing and delete it, or make usre
that you copy the original position to the new time-line position and it
shouldn't go anywhere.

No guarantees though, animator is a nightmare.

 

Thanks Lee,

I've found the solution which is basically to forget using limitangles
and then moving these parts in animator.

Replace limitangles with regular angle mates and then animate these
mates (at the bottom of the animator feature manager will result in
nice controllable motion with the added benefit of locking down your
flexible sa's.

It's too bad in a way because when your done animating you have to go
back and toggle angle mates with limitangles to return to the
functionality you have in the 'model tab' (I'm resisiting calling it
model space and animator space'!)

Zander

 

I've found that limit angles have a nasty habit of flipping sides anyway,
regardless of animator.

 

Hi,

Limit mates are a problem for me as well, with little solutions available...
I do A LOT of mechanical motion testing and design.

However, if your limit is say a number like 100.00 try changing it to
99.99... or from 0.00 to 0.001, etc. I know it seems strange but this has
worked (almost always) for me in the past.

I guess the trick is to keep the numbers thousandths from the limit... seems
to work, worth a try.

Good Luck,

Aron

 

Thanks Aron, I'll give that a try.

Zander

 

Using the angle mates instead of limit mates is definitely the way to
go, although even the regular angle mates have a nasty habit of
flipping sometimes.

To keep the mates organized, I usually create an "animator"
configuration that has them all set up the right way, then I don't have
to keep track of which mates to turn off and on, etc.

 

That's a good idea - I don't use animator often so it's been a slow
learning curve - but I think I'm getting it now . My main gripe is
that you have to manually copy keys to prevserve position of parts -
ie. I'm at the 15sec. mark and I move a part that hasn't been moved
before. When I move it that 15sec-key essentially sets the stop point
but doesn't set the start point at all. So you need to goto the 0sec
mark, copy key then paste key at the 13sec mark (eg.) if you wanted to
restrict the motion between 13 and 15 seconds.

It would be could in you could bracket the timeline with start and stop
(in-out) markers.

Zander

 

You know it, Brother.
I had an animation where I had to rotate a component from 0deg to 90
deg. No matter what I did, as I got close to 90deg it would start
heading backwards. I tried editing the mate planes so it would go from
90 to 180, but got the same results (and all other permutations - 45 to
135, etc). I eventually got beat - it was the first time that I can
recall that I could not miracle a workaround for an issue.
I tried it again in Beta of 2007-same issue with the same failure. At
least I got it reported clearly at that time. I wonder if it has been
addressed?
I found that mates were so flaky with animator (lately-2006/2007. It
used to be workable, circa 2004) that I essentially gave up on the
product. I used a 'storyboard' of still images to communicate the
concept instead. Some workaround
I will, of course, try again, but wonder if any attention has been
paid to fixing it?
Ed