Rigging Window Blinds?

CrissieB

Thank you, Thomas!

Crissie

CrissieB

Hi all,

Here are the blinds placed in the diner, two daytime views and one nighttime view. The nighttime view has the blinds open to let in the moonlight, and so the diner staff and patrons can watch the mist rise off the swamp across the street.

I decided to duplicate rather than instance them, so each blind fixture can be raised and/or opened individually. Had I instanced them, all six fixtures would move in exact unison ... and I've never seen sets of blind fixtures adjusted that precisely.

Thank you all for your help!

Crissie

Edit: Daytime exterior render added

Thomas Windar

Well, I managed to give it a simple rig and make it work flawlessly when I started from the .OBJ file.
I sent you my observations over a private message.

I guess the problem was that I suggested the use of an Animated Range but forgot to tell you you need Keymate to precisely control the Keyframes. My bad - sorry for that.

Are those Window Blinds already in their final form?
If they are - I'll fully rig them for you. It'll be a faster and less frustrating solution for you.
We'd just have to discuss privately what do you want them to do in that case.

CrissieB

Hi Thomas!

Yes, the blinds are in their final form. I'll PM you with what I have in mind for their controls.

Thank you so much for your help!

Crissie

CrissieB

Hi All,

Well, I spent two days trying to make an animation-rig so the blinds would stack at the bottom as they're raised, with the slats above remaining in place until lifted ... and Thomas spent several​ days trying to do that for me, and we never did get it quite right. So I went with the simpler rig: as the blinds are raised, the footer and slats raise proportionally to their final positions.

That's how they would have worked had I done the Lower-Raise control as a Morph, however the time spent rigging then was not​ wasted. Because they're a rigged figure, I could do this ...

... posing the blinds as if a character were using his/her fingers to separate those two blinds and peek out between them.

Had I used Morphs, a user would have had to export the blinds and make another Morph for that "peek out" pose. Because they're a rigged figure, I did that in about 4 minutes: zero the Open-Close rotation for Slat9 and Slat10, Raise Slat9 by 2cm, Z-Rotate Slat9 by -0.75 degrees, and Z-Rotate Slat10 by 0.5 degrees. Yes, in order to make that pose, a user must know how to access Hidden Properties (for the Z-rotation). But that's a whole lot easier to learn than Morph-making ... so I'm happy.

Thank you all for your help, and a big public Thank You​ to Thomas, who really tried on the animation-stack-rigging. I'm sure that's doable. I'm also pretty sure that, as Thomas said in PM, "It seems to be more trouble than it's worth."

Crissie

Thomas Windar

They worked on my side.
I just failed to export it properly. XP

Ah well....