Mr Bot

[sonofmickel]

Here is my next try. I will be finishing and animating this little guy. Wish me luck.

Any tuts on rigging something like this? There will be rotating parts to make everthing move.

Thanks!

[Techno]

i cant help myself because no one responded to u.

RUDE COMMENT REMOVED BY ADMIN

Let's remember this forum is here for constructive criticism. :mad:

[sonofmickel]

Thank you for the kind words Techno. Here is my next "try" at Mr. Bot. I will add springs and a working mechanical system in the next week or so. All crits welcome. Even Techno's help is appreciated!

[david_B]

Umm, thought I'd better offer some crits, seeing as you've been stranded here with only an annoying 13 year old for company.

The revision seems quite good. In the first picture it seemed that the bot could only walk sideways (due to the nature of the legs) but I can see in the updated pics that mr.bot's legs actually slide back and forth with some kind of pnuamatic system. Right?

A model like this rendered with radiosity and HDRI would look pretty good. Combined with a decent mechanical walk cycle it's a great learning project.

When you say 'working mechanical system' are you planning on using dynamics or just a clever skelegon/bone setup?

If this is one of your first rigging projects I would probably try and keep it simple at first.

Anyway, good on you for brushing aside the kids comment and keep it coming. It would be good to see this animated.

[sonofmickel]

The movements power comes from the internal wind up motor. So, when the Key on her/his back spins so does the red circle on his/her belly. The two posts on top of his/her legs are offset and will be attached with a spring at the silver pins. the springs keeps tension on the red circle which is rotating from via its off-center pivot point. The offset and spring tension keep the legs in contact with the red circle and make the legs"sway" back and forth-not walk(boring). The arms work via the same priciple. On the back side of the model is a wishbone system with a smaller offset spinning yellow circle located near the small of his/back. The movement is mechanically amplified using the yolk, or wishbone. The wishbone moves side to side using its' offset pivot near the evacuous end of the robot (so there is much more movement at the shoulders).
Then there are just the usual mechanical sliding hinges and pivot points that are typically found on a first timers dancing model toy!

"Never try, never fail!"...Robots the movie

[david_B]

well...I'll take your word for it.

[newlands]

I think what you are attemping sounds pretty ambitious. Be cool to see how it gets done. I am too new to be much help but am interested none the less.

Good luck and let us know how it's going.

[kjl]

Cute - I like the vaguely technic-lego-like style of everything. I really like elegant mechanical linkages like that - and the offset circle motor in those toys always ends up with nice, smooth motion. I think those Zoids toys when I was a kid used those, and had linkages like your Mr. Bot arms to power offset walking legs and the like. Very cool ;)

Is that "figure-eight" elbow piece part of the forearm piece? It looks like he will end up delivering lots of hook punches while he waddles back and forth ;)

Also, don't you want the leg hinges above the red circle instead of below, so he steps outwards instead of inwards?

[Techno]

i assure u if i didnt make my comment none of u would have given him the time of day. if anything it was constructive and it did get him some legit comments. just my 2 cents yet again... dont expect to be able to model a character if u dont know how to rig... it wont work...

[kjl]

Any tuts on rigging something like this? There will be rotating parts to make everthing move.

Ah, I forgot you were asking for help rigging, too.

How good is your trig/geometry? It seems like this would be a perfect application for expressions - Each joint only has one degree of rotational freedom aligned with one of the major axes, and the angle of each joint can be derived exactly from the previous joints and the position of the circular motor pieces.

The angle of the leg joint can be solved (boils down to a tangent-finding problem) and the elbow joint can be solved (boils down to an intersection-of-two-circles problem).

The wishbone is not a convenient shape - it might be hard to find an explicit math formula to solve for how much the upper arms are getting moved based on the rotation of the wishbone piece.