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Realistic belt animation

Realistic belt animation

Realistic belt animation

(OP)
Hello everybody, i want to design an internal combustion engine. I want to use a belt to link the motion from crankshaft to camshafts but i don't know how to make the belt move when i render the animation. It remains as a static object. Can anyone help me?

RE: Realistic belt animation

The belt doesn't have to move, just the pulleys.  Read up on the belt mate in SWX Help.  Make sure the pulleys are free to rotate in that level of assembly you are working in.

- - -Updraft

RE: Realistic belt animation

(OP)
Thanks Updraft, i know, the pulleys are moving well, but i need the belt to move for the rendered animation of the engine. If not, maybe you can help me make a teeth belt and use teeth gears so i can make it look realistic.

RE: Realistic belt animation

I haven't had the need for this type of animation and am doubtful that SWX can do this easily if at all.  The toothed belt in motion represents a solid part that is changing with each incremental move of the pulley.  This requires a complete regeneration of the solid that is the belt, whereas the pulleys simply rotate.  This is similar to the problem of deflecting springs; recalculation/regeneration of the solid for the flexible element is too time consuming for the animations.

The best I can suggest is to treat the belt like a roller chain and modeling it as a series of linked segments that look like your belt.  You might still use a belt part to act as cover for the segments so your animation does not show the gaps between the segments.  Just an idea.

Other than that you might look for help/examples from Rob Rodriguez on animations.  http://robrodriguez.com/wordpress/?p=1067

Perhaps you could post your results and share with us your lessons learned.

Good luck,

- - -Updraft

RE: Realistic belt animation

(OP)
Well, i`m trying to design the engine which you can see on my blog http://florin-3dcad.blogspot.com/ I still need to figure out how to make a reallistic link from the crankshaft to camshafts, i think i`ll try to use a chain or something else, but if i still can`t figure it out i`ll just use solidworks`s belt feature. All impressions are welcome (good or bad).

RE: Realistic belt animation

(OP)
Thank you for your answers, i`ll come with an update when it will be done

RE: Realistic belt animation

Cannot tell what that is from the image, but whatever it is you should be able to hide, suppress or delete it from the Feature Manager of the model.

RE: Realistic belt animation

(OP)
Yes i know it must be solved somehow, the part is that at a time i tried to use a background appearance for the render and i think it is from there. The part is i removed the background but that "thing" is still there and i can`t figure out how to hide or delete it.

RE: Realistic belt animation

(OP)
I fixed it, i added a new background and removed, thank you.

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