Getting wheels to rotate in Character Animator

Question

Hi there, CA community,

I have a scene where I would like to have a vehicle moving across the screen. I've figured out how to control the Y axis for smooth movement, by attaching a slider to the control panel, and enabling the axis to record from the Transform behaviour - but I need the vehicle wheels to rotate to make it work properly.

Is there a way to set up auto rotation, without having to bind this to a slider or dial somehow? Or if I apply physics, would the wheels turn from friction with the floor? I susupect the answer is just to do this over the top of the scene in After Effects - but just thought I'd check first.

alank99101739 · Answer

The Transform behavior also has a Rotate property you could adjust in the same way as movement. You would have to add a new Transform behavior to the wheel layer (or else the whole puppet would rotate!), and getting the wheel to move at exactly the right speed to look natural can be a little tricky.

You mention using a slider - are you finding that gives smooth movements? If not you can “blend” a recording between two values in a smoother way. Episodes 9 and 11 from this series have examples if helpful: https://extra-ordinary.tv/2018/10/22/project-wookie-a-beginner-youtube-playlist/

I suspect that using physics and friction will not work, but have not tried it. There are concepts like magnets as well for example. I was wondering if friction + magnet to attach wheel to car might work, but I suspect it won’t.

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