Animating Gears & Gradient Fill

**Hwy101** · 25 March 2007, 12:29 AM

I was making some Gears that I wanted to animate (easy huh) and had some questions... when I got to animate, should I make the frames myself or does Xara do well with using key frames (what would I need? Start, Finish, middle?)

I have the gears on different Layers, should I just leave that way, Rotating myself and making a different frame of the animation with each adjustment.

The 'teeth' on the gears indvidually placed squares/rectangles... I was thinking of doing a gradient fill for the Gears, do I have to combine the pieces to do that or will making a Editable shape do that for me?)

Plus, I noted when I was experimenting with placement of the Teeth of the Gears, when I tried to Manually Rotate around the Common Center, that some of the Teeth would 'NOT' rotate but distort

along a horizontal line... becoming like a parallelagram... not what I expected trying to use manual rotating. I did, of course, get the teeth placed by designating the degrees and letting the program rotate (but, even then, some distortion would have with the 'tooth' being too high off the gear... requiring manual adjustment with the arrow keys so as not to risk the distortion using the mouse.

**parahandy** · 25 March 2007, 02:37 AM

To all you guys with questions, a bit of well meant advice always try the search option before posting a query.

Tom try this http://talkgraphics.com/showthread.p...ighlight=gears

If this doesn't help try typing "spinning gears or cogs" in the search facility there's quite a lot there.
........Norman

**Hwy101** · 25 March 2007, 11:57 PM

Originally Posted by parahandy

To all you guys with questions, a bit of well meant advice always try the search option before posting a query.

Tom try this http://talkgraphics.com/showthread.p...ighlight=gears

If this doesn't help try typing "spinning gears or cogs" in the search facility there's quite a lot there.
........Norman

WoW! 4 spinning Gears making a cube - Way more Complex, losing me, than I need - I will try the other two searches...

=== also part of post about Gears & a Problem I had =====
Plus, I noted when I was experimenting with placement of the Teeth of the Gears, when I tried to Manually Rotate around the Common Center, that some of the Teeth would 'NOT' rotate but distort

along a horizontal line... becoming like a parallelagram... not what I expected trying to use manual rotating. I did, of course, get the teeth placed by designating the degrees and letting the program rotate (but, even then, some distortion would have with the 'tooth' being too high off the gear... requiring manual adjustment with the arrow keys so as not to risk the distortion using the mouse.
=============================================

(while many of the posts, 'How-To' - I don't see where the post answer 'Why' the Retangles/Squares 'Squash' and move along a Horizontal line Instead of Rotating Manually -or, did that get over-looked?)

Tom

**jamesmc** · 26 March 2007, 01:47 AM

Not sure what you had in mind with the gears. Here's a method for making a gear, not animating. Uses a boolean factor.

**jamesmc** · 26 March 2007, 10:50 AM

Perhaps someone could explain to me a couple of things.

The GIF animation below is from the gear I made in the previous post.

I noticed it was wobbling, so I put a rectangle in the first frame to see how much it was wobbling.

What occurred next surprised me. There was not only noticeable wobble, but the gear appears to dig out a portion of the rectangle.

Just exactly what is happening here?

Animation was made in Xara3D.

**jamesmc** · 26 March 2007, 10:55 AM

Here is the geardig X3D file.

I resized the export so the GIF animation would be smaller; this is the full size file in Xara 3D.

**-=Drifter=-** · 26 March 2007, 12:24 PM

James, pulling the x3d file into pro after straightening the angles out by hand as good as my eyes can I see that the center circle is not dead center.
As far as the rectangle being chewed away - now that is really strange!

**ren2980** · 26 March 2007, 02:47 PM

Originally Posted by jamesmc

Perhaps someone could explain to me a couple of things.

The GIF animation below is from the gear I made in the previous post.

I noticed it was wobbling, so I put a rectangle in the first frame to see how much it was wobbling.

What occurred next surprised me. There was not only noticeable wobble, but the gear appears to dig out a portion of the rectangle.

Just exactly what is happening here?

Animation was made in Xara3D.

James, Running your attached file in my 3d6 had the same problem as you indicated. But running the attached image I did before was normal without wobbling. I had tried different angles and got the same results . I can not explain and wait for some experts like Bill, Egg and Gary to answer it.

**jamesmc** · 26 March 2007, 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by -=Drifter=-

James, pulling the x3d file into pro after straightening the angles out by hand as good as my eyes can I see that the center circle is not dead center.
As far as the rectangle being chewed away - now that is really strange!

Hmmm,

Drifter should the center match the handles on the sides? Take a look at this kloned ellispe and where the horizontal line points compared to yours.

**Hwy101** · 26 March 2007, 09:39 PM

Originally Posted by jamesmc

Hmmm,

Drifter should the center match the handles on the sides? Take a look at this kloned ellispe and where the horizontal line points compared to yours.

Thank You Jamesmc, Ren, Drifter! You guys at Killer! ... I will try to get the squished squares...