LDCad help combining animation movements

[Roland Melkert]

Appreciate the help.  I'll try to figure out the 8860 code by looking at the "actors" and hopefully my example will have only three actors and each will have a simple motion to describe.

The trick for me will be to recognize the main "story" components out of the 1100 lines of code in 8860.

Both 8860(and your model have only one actor. Actors are used to describe the bone structure of the things moving. This way you won't have to worry about recursion of stuff attached to other stuff.

As it has been a couple of years for me using this stuff myself I went and made the mechanical part of the animation (as far I understand it).

It needs a better story (not just infinite rotation at the starting gear)

But it should get you going a whole lot faster as there is next to nothing documentation wise

Code:

genTools=require('genTools')
aniTools=require('aniTools')

function mainActor()

  local mainSf=ldc.subfile()
  local result=aniTools.actor()

  --Joints and aniElms
  result.inputGearsAngle=result:addAniElm(aniTools.aniElm(0))
  result:addJoint(aniTools.angleJoint(mainSf:getRef('InputGears.ldr'), result.inputGearsAngle, ldc.vector(0,1,0)))

  result.knobPairAngle=result:addAniElm(aniTools.aniElm(0))
  result:addJoint(aniTools.angleJoint(mainSf:getRef('KnobPair.ldr'), result.knobPairAngle, ldc.vector(0,0,1)))

  result.endGearsAngle=result:addAniElm(aniTools.aniElm(0))
  result:addJoint(aniTools.angleJoint(mainSf:getRef('EndGears.ldr'), result.endGearsAngle, ldc.vector(0,1,0)))

  result.pivotDriverAngle=result:addAniElm(aniTools.aniElm(0))
  result:addJoint(aniTools.angleJoint(mainSf:getRef('PivotDriver.ldr'), result.pivotDriverAngle, ldc.vector(0,1,0)))

  result.pivotArmAngle=result:addAniElm(aniTools.aniElm(0))
  local arm=result:addJoint(aniTools.angleJoint(mainSf:getRef('PivotArm.ldr'), result.pivotArmAngle, ldc.vector(0,1,0)))

  --Attach the hor arm axle to the arm joint instead of the actor itself.
  result.pivotHorizontalsAngle=result:addAniElm(aniTools.aniElm(0))
  arm:addJoint(aniTools.angleJoint(mainSf:getRef('PivotHorizontals.ldr'), result.pivotHorizontalsAngle, ldc.vector(0,0,1)))

  --Create a state tracking table for the pivot angle as everyhing behind it depends on the current mode.
  result.modeStateInfo=result:addStateInfo(aniTools.numberDepStateInfo(result.pivotDriverAngle, {mode=0}))

  return result
end

function modeDepAction(actor)

  --Custom state dependend action, to handle all possible dependency chains based on a current mode variable.

  local result=aniTools.stateInfoDepAction(actor.modeStateInfo, 0, nil)
  result.actor=actor
 
  result.initTotals=function(self)
    self.totPivotArmAngle=0
    self.totPivotHorizontalsAngle=0
  end
 
  result.processState=function(self, state)
 
    local mode=state.value.mode
    local mainAngle=state.elmValueDiff --don't access pivotDriverAngle directly as that gives it's current ABS angle. We want the one relative to the start of this state segment.

    local armAngle=0
    local horAngle=0   

    if mode==0 then
      --only arm moves
      armAngle=mainAngle
    elseif mode==1 then
      --block arm
      horAngle=-mainAngle
    else
      --block hor
      armAngle=mainAngle
      horAngle=-armAngle
    end
   
    self.totPivotArmAngle=self.totPivotArmAngle+armAngle
    self.totPivotHorizontalsAngle=self.totPivotHorizontalsAngle+horAngle
  end
 
  result.applyTotals=function(self)
    self.actor.pivotArmAngle:setValue(self.totPivotArmAngle)
    self.actor.pivotHorizontalsAngle:setValue(self.totPivotHorizontalsAngle)
  end
 
  return result
end

function onStart()

  story=aniTools.story()
  local actor=story:addActor(mainActor())
  local seq=story:addSequence(aniTools.sequence())
 
  --==actions==--
 
  --base gears run forever
  seq:addAction(aniTools.speedAction(actor.inputGearsAngle, 0, nil, 45))
  seq:addAction(aniTools.ratioDepAction(actor.knobPairAngle, 0, nil, actor.inputGearsAngle, -1))
  seq:addAction(aniTools.ratioDepAction(actor.endGearsAngle, 0, nil, actor.knobPairAngle, -1))
  seq:addAction(aniTools.ratioDepAction(actor.pivotDriverAngle, 0, nil, actor.endGearsAngle, -1))
 
  --Setup state dep actions
  seq:addAction(modeDepAction(actor))  --custom action
  seq:addAction(aniTools.stateChangeAction(actor.modeStateInfo, 2, {mode=1}))
  seq:addAction(aniTools.stateChangeAction(actor.modeStateInfo, 4, {mode=2}))

  --==All done==--
  story:prep()
end

function onFrame()
  story:apply(ldc.animation():getFrameTime())
end

function register()

  local ani=ldc.animation('My animation')
  ani:setLength(10)
  ani:setEvent('start', 'onStart')
  ani:setEvent('frame', 'onFrame')
end

register()

Let me know if you need more comments.