3D Animated Doodad


Since a lot of the objects in the game were static, I decided to make a piece of decoration to be placed where-ever needed to help spice up the game world.
This decoration was to incorporate a simple animation that rotated the top of the object continually and in a perfect circle. By default, whilst using the Euler XYZ controller an element cannot be rotated fully in 3DS Max, as the angles top out at -180°, and 180°. This causes the element to rotate back on itself as the angle overflows.
To get around this, we need to use the TCB rotation controller setting in the animation options, which allows up to use angles up to 360° easily and efficiently.
With this I am able to keyframe at 25 frame intervals, and the animation gets a perfectly smooth loop.
A plan for this object is for the upper object to be a light source. We might further enhance this animation through code.

It's a simple animation, but combined with the light source should be effective in the interactive story.

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