Getting mirrored object to move the same direction

[xfuture]

Hello everyone.

I am sure this one is pretty simple but I can't seem to figure it out . I have chosen a mesh as an interp actor. It will be part of a lift. So I added two to my level and I had to rotate 1 of the pieces 180 degrees so that the same face was out on each side of the lift trouble is when I run the animation one side goes down as expected but the other side goes up. I see what is happening, it's because I had to rotate the mesh so I changed the orientation so instead of following the z axis down it follows it up but I sure don't know how to fix this. Any hints? Hopefully I was clear enough to give an idea of the dillema.

[DGUnreal]

I don't quite follow... are these attached or using individual Kismet sequences, etc.

Anyway, instead of using Rotation on the InterpActor, simply flip the axis you want by putting a "-" in the Display.DrawScale3D.X Y or Z (negative values there flips 180 on that axis).

[Vectorspace]

It sounds like you have run into the same problem that I first had with lifts - are you moving each individual piece of the lift when setting the matinee key frames?

Instead animate only the main lift platform, then use the attach function in the mesh properties to attach the secondary components to the lift platform.

[xfuture]

Ok DG, using a combination of your input and some rotation I was able to get 2 of the A pieces (see diagram below) to move in the proper direction.



Right now I have 2 matinee sequences running off of the same trigger 1 is for the main lift platform and 2 is for the upper right A pieces. These 2 are working. I figure all together I will have 5 matinee sequences 1-Platform 2-Upper Right A's, 3-Upper Left A's, 4-Lower Right B's and 5-Lower Left B's. So that when triggered together they will give the illusion of the lift I am looking for. Is there an easier way?

However the B pieces are proving a little more tricky. I need to animate the rotation and connect them to the mover platform as you pointed out Vectorspace. However if I connect them first the matinee editor will not let me make the movement track. Ok so I figure I can make the movement then attach them to the lift. But when I try to make the movement I get rotation on 2 axis instead of just the one I need. So instead of a simple rotation on the x axis it also swings out on the y looking kind of goofy. How do I stop that? Ironically enough I had the same issue when I first tried to animate the upper (A) pieces but after a few trys it seemed to work right and I don't recall doing anything differently.

The over all affect I am trying to get is a floor lift that uses bars with a scissor action to lower. There are 4 upper posts and 4 lower posts. I was trying to animate the 2 posts on one end that have to move the same way at the same time and as I mentioned above I did have some success with the upper parts (I only did one end just to see If I could get it working). I guess I could try to animate each of the 8 pieces individually then tie them all together in kismet?

The only other option I can think of would be to make 4 stationary posts so that the lift has a visible path and I only have to animate the lift platform itself (which is already working). However this doesn't quite fit with my vision. That seems to be the issue here. I don't know the editor well enough to match my vision.

And thanks for the input. I really am grateful for the help.

[Nawrot]

Can you just animate all pieces separately each on its individual movment track in one matinee?

Just add more movment tracks there for each one. Then animate them:
Set starting position+rotation, move to next key set end position and rotation, engine should interpolate.

- lift is just moving up/down, so no problem here
- pieces A are just rotating, also should be not problem.
- pieces be: you need to rotate them then move to final position.

Howewer engine sometimes does whacky things like rotating CCW 270deg instead 90CW. In such cases you open curve editor for that offending rotation and put it in place. If you have acces to Editors collection watch their matine tuts, they explain how to edit curves there.

[xfuture]

Well good news and bad news. I managed to get all the pieces doing the right thing and I got it tied together. I ended up deleting the meshes I had been working with and adding new then for what ever reason it only rotated on the axis I needed. For the B pieces I added the animation first then attached them to the platform and it worked like a charm, but (and you knew that was coming) the ends where A and B "join" do not track closely enough and it looks pretty sloppy. I am trying to adjust the timing to make it look better.

[DGUnreal]

Since you have so many pieces, it is going to be some tweaking to get it to work correctly.
If you have 3D modeling software, you may want to consider doing complex animated objects like this as animated skeletal meshes instead. The hierarchical animation systems in software like 3DS Max are superior to UnrealEd.

[xfuture]

I will have to do some more research on the various suggestions. I do have access to an older version of 3DSMax but at this point I don't think I will be able to pursue the 3DSMax angle DG since I would have to learn a great deal about the 3D modeling program to produce the animation. I will use the static posts for now and keep working on it. My tweaking of the movement time did not bear any fruit.

Thanks for all suggestions and tips.

[Nawrot]

Not sure if that is also english saying, but: Devil hides in details.

To animate it as group of separate objects you need to do some math and thinking. Basically you need to find function to describe all pieces movement and rotation. It will take lot of tweaking to find those curves by trial and error. Observe that for eg movment is not linear, also speed of rotation of those pieces is not. That is main reason you cannot synchronize everything manually and that all animation looks bad.

Maybe you can find some freeware program to calculate positions and rotations for all elements for you, Then you could just copy (possibly scale also) values over to UTe editor. This should do the trick.

[xfuture]

That is a lot to chew on Nawrot, but it did light a few lights. I will take a look and see what I can do.