I downloaded a couple of helicopters from Google Warehouse.

I thought I could do this in 3D Exchange, but I can't figure it out.

I want to have the propeller blades and tail blades rotate. My idea is
to create a little animation of a helicopter tour of the Las Vegas strip
using a Google Earth movie of the strip as a background.

I don't see why the helicopter blade rotation can't be done in a 3D animation,
but I'm drawing a blank. I though I would have to group the blades and the
part the blades are connected to and then just rotate on axis? But I guess 3D Exchange
doesn't have a group option.

The other thing is when I export from 3D Exchange to iclone, the helicopter is one
whole object. I cannot pick just the propeller blades?

Ideas?

Thanks,

Ray

I have never been able to get the hang of using Sketchup for some reason--embarrassing, because people say it's easy. (There is a market for those of you selling iClone tutes: include some lessons on Sketchup.)

However, it's not too hard to "Explode" and delete portions of Sketchup models inside Sketchup itself. Just be sure that you save different versions of the original model with the various portions separated out.

Bring these separately into 3DXChange.

General Picture - animating now to life itself(tm)
Member of Content Wizards

it's very easy, call up your prop in 3DX 4 , select the parts you want to animate independently .. make them into "Sub Props" then adjust their axis / pivot points ,. do one for each propellers separately. - call up in iclone then select the sub prop you want to animate ..and voila. good luck!

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I was able to find a helicopter in 3D Warehouse that had various parts, including the blades, seperate.  To import them as sub-props in iClone, in 3DXchange 4 Pro, select the propellor blades and click Make Sub-Prop (on the right). This will create a new sub-prop for these blades.  Do the same for the tail blades.

The next thing to do is to adjust the pivot of the blade props, which determines the axis the blades will rotate around. In 3DX, select the propellor blades sub-prop and click Edit Pivot. This will show the current position of the pivot of the blades prop and a dialog box to change the position of the pivot.

Change the position of the pivot so that the vertical axis lines up with center of the blades. The other axes are less critical but it is best to line them up so that they are more or less in the same plane as the blades.

Do the same for the tail blades object, except that axis of rotation is horizontal.

Import the helicopter into iClone. There should now be two separate sub-props for the blades, which you should be able to animate.

If the Sketchup helicopter is a single object in 3DXchange, you should seperate the blades first in Sketchup as PW suggests, then proceed as explained above. 

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So, there's the original prop and then the Sub-prop. The Edit Pivot is only enabled when I choose the original node and not the Sub-Prop? Also, each blade has a front and back?

Thanks in advance!

Ray

Don't exactly know what I did, but in iClone, the top blades are rotating on the Z axis and it's looking good. Now I have to figure out how to adjust the speed of the rotation...from slow to fast! Then the tail propellers....

Ray

Well, here's my first stab at animating a helicopter. No much but it's awesome for me!
I still need to animate the tail props....

Ray

A bit late, but Irene cut my power... You should be able to edit the pivot of the sub-prop. The front and back you notice are a peculiarity of SketchUp. Sometimes you can dispense with either front or back by selecting double-sided for the material of the opposite side. That saves polygons, but doesn't always work.

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https://www.google.co.th/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=%23&ved=2ahUKEwjWgcvEgpXeAhUHWX0KHQX2D-wQwqsBMAB6BAgIEAU&usg=AOvVaw0VTJzWxrN8ZFOD4xbU2nov&cshid=1540039279637

This is the best example for helicopter animation by Iclone.