Animating Gears & Gradient Fill

[-=Drifter=-]

My guidelines show the center of the outer gear shape and that the center circle's center is in a different spot.

[Hwy101]

My guidelines show the center of the outer gear shape and that the center circle's center is in a different spot.

I have trouble with getting stuff to line-up on common center sometimes... or to have a common center (I am trying to keep track of this -see if me or the program)

[jamesmc]

I have trouble with getting stuff to line-up on common center sometimes... or to have a common center (I am trying to keep track of this -see if me or the program)

Me too.

I went back and rechecked each stage and no matter what stage I check, I get the wobble, including the ellipse by itself.

[Hwy101]

Me too.

I went back and rechecked each stage and no matter what stage I check, I get the wobble, including the ellipse by itself.

Thanks for Posting Your Experience too Jamsemc -I'll relax a bit knowing that.

(I'd hate to have to 'trace' this to see what happening... I, once, had enough 'fun' tracking a non-print in basic programing class - Printed fine on the Printer; but, not on/to Screen... (and not to leave any one hang: t'was printing ON Screen; but I had, in error, left the screen color & the character color the same -Bad Tom) - Just took Challenged Tom FOREVER to Find!)

Heresy follows :
Sometimes, when I need 'Accuracy' I end up in another Program... <sigh>
(trying not to think of the Gear Teeth that deformed and would not manually rotate Nicely)
End Heresy!

[jamesmc]

The conclusion I have come up with is that Blends are bugged and cannot be used in rotating animations.

I've tried several versions of the gear like object without blends and boolean on the inner ellipse and I get no wobble.

It is only with blends that I get the wobble.

I found specifically that when any shape is blended, then boolean subtracted, the shape will wobble.
Also, even if it isn't booleaned the shape will wobble.

[jamesmc]

Okay, I think I've figured this out and that blend and boolean works for rotating gears. (watch it not work when displayed here )

Anyway, what I did is turned rulers on and when I clicked on the gear to get rotation handles and the center location, I used the intersection of the top and side ruler to line up the center pivot. This seems to solve the wobbling gear using the method I displayed. I have no idea why other than when not using the built in guides and rulers of Xara, the pivot center of the manufactured gear is not actually centered and defaults to center of the original object which is not really there. Does that make sense? Me neither.

Anyway it appears to work, why I don't know. My apologies to Charles and Company, there appears to be no bug in blends or boolean, just another user error.

Control L to show Rulers btw.

[Nostaw]

That's another reason to embed origin points as an attribute for each shape.
Move the shape, stretch the shape, Add/Intersect the shape with another one, Redraw parts of the shape - and never loose the origin point. It's useful for so many things.

[jamesmc]

That's another reason to embed origin points as an attribute for each shape.
Move the shape, stretch the shape, Add/Intersect the shape with another one, Redraw parts of the shape - and never loose the origin point. It's useful for so many things.

Embed origin points? How do I do that?

Here's another gear mechanism using the blended/boolean method.

[Nostaw]

Embed origin points? How do I do that?

Sorry to be cryptic and not much of help. Origin points (sometimes called Center) do not exist as an attribute for shapes in Xara. This was merely a suggestion for future versions.

[handrawn]

Sorry to be cryptic and not much of help. Origin points (sometimes called Center) do not exist as an attribute for shapes in Xara. This was merely a suggestion for future versions.

I'll endorse that - would be very useful