Animate Linkage

[grasshopper]

I have faked this linkage as best I can (rotating the cross brace down independently with several steps). Is there a way for this cross brace to translate with the knob, and rotate with the leg?

thanks for the help!

[sloanelliot]

What software did you model this in? If SolidWorks (and I believe a few others are supported similarly), you can just animate it in there and use the KeyShot plugin to send to KS w/animation data.

If KeyShot is your only option for animation (which is somewhat clunky by modern animation standards), what you'd want to do is create a nested/hierarchical folder structure for each "tier" of parts being animated, something like:

Fully Assembly...
  => [Leg+ArmatureBolt+Armature+SlideBolt]
        => [Armature+SlideBolt]
              => [SlideBolt]

Then you'd rotate the first subset (containing all moving parts) using the main leg bolt as your pivot. From there, you'd rotate the secondary set (just armature + slide bolt), using the armature bolt as the pivot, and finally, animate the slide bolt on its own if you're wanting it to rotate independently as it slides along the main body, using its own bolt as pivot. If your pivots are mathematically accurate in CAD, the parts should line up appropriately, and even if not 100%, a few more/less degrees of rotation on your armature subset should get you there. You can also create a dummy object as a pivot as well, if things aren't quite lining up where you want them to be.

Math is ultimately your friend on these types of projects, though!