Rotation. The Bane of All A:M Users

[Atomike]

So I'm trying to do something incredibly simple. Rotate an object more than 180 degrees. But I am having terrible difficulty. After 6 years of using A:M, this is one area that I cannot figure out. Since I know it's a rage-inducing process. For years, I've simply avoided rotating anything more than 180 degrees since I knew that A:M really does not want to you do this. But now I have to, and after many searches, the answer I need simply is not there.

I click on my bone - go to the properties panel. Go to rotation. Right click on that. And at this point, I'm supposed to see a way to change the driver. But I don't. I just see "New Relationship" and "Edit Expression" neither of which is the correct thing.

So, 2 questions -

1. What am I doing wrong.

2. Why wasn't this fixed in version .00001 of the software?

Regardless, maybe people with many, many years of experience can finally help me dig deep within the various menus and sub-menus so I can rotate something. Thanks in advance.

[KenH]

All 3D software acts this way. In fact, AM is the one that does this best......

 

Don't touch the bone properties in the model window.

In an action/chor, rotate the bone but bring it back to it's start position. (Here we're sort of waking up the driver )

Now with the bone selected go to the properties panel.

Right click on Rotate>Convert driver to>Eular

 

Now it should rotate to where you animated it.

[Gerry]

Hey Atomike, as with anything computer-related, this is easy once you know how! It used to drive me crazy too. What you need to do is FIRST CREATE A ROTATION. Doesn't matter how much but obviously less than 180. Set a keyframe for the beginning AND the end.THEN when you right click on the rotation setting in the PWS you'll get an option to "Change driver to". Select "Euler" (pronounced "oiler"). Now you can rotate it 5000 degrees if you want. Move the ending keyframe to where you want the rotation to end and bob's your uncle! I believe you can even set intermediate keyframes if you want the rotation to start slower and get faster, but play around with it. Once you've got "Euler" selected fine-tuning it is pretty easy.

[Atomike]

This is what I needed. You both get 16 Awesome Points. I hope I can remember this. I should just bookmark this page.

[HomeSlice]

1. What am I doing wrong.

You keep voting for the wrong party

 

2. Why wasn't this fixed in version .00001 of the software?

It hasn't been fixed because it isn't broken. It works just fine.

 

Think of it this way. You can't "convert" a rotation driver if there is nothing to convert. So you must create rotation channel first.

On frame 0, enter some value for either the x,y, or z rotation on an instance of a model in an Action or Chor (a value of 0 works).

Now right-click on "Rotate" and choose "Convert Driver To".