hi,
i have to rig a rolling cube thats function on all three rotation axis…
ideally with one mover controller…
is this possible with mgear?
(i found some scripts and expressions but this is only for one rotation axis…?
any hints?
I apologize if this reply comes across as rude. It’s not my intention. I’m genuinely confused. What do you mean by “possible with mgear”? Do you think there will be a “cube-rolling” module that you can just click?
If you’ve searched for scripts and expressions, then you’ve seen that it can be a pretty complex problem. And likely something you’ll have to solve based in the context of what you are trying to accomplish.
One way that you can fake it, if you are not comfortable with math or game-like solvers, is by laying out a series of joints or groups in the path you want to roll. And then constraining the cube to the final joint. Then roll them up one at a time by rotating 90 degrees.
hi chris,
thanks for the hint.
my first intention was to try to do it with mgear. it comes with tools (rbf manager, space switches, etc) which i didnt explored in deep yet, so i thought that someone maybe realized something similiar with mgear…
my r&d (more r than d) on this bring up, like you mentioned, a lot of math, expressions and programming knowledge…seems that a really animator-friendly rolling cube setup is the “holy grail” in rigging…
in the meanwhile i found a tutorial, where a “dynamic pivot” is used to achive rolling cube animation
in conjunction with a little script for a helper locator to pose the pivot…(maybe also usefull for irregular shapes…)
(there is also this makeRoll mel command, but it seems buggy…)
Cool! So were you able to get your effect with that tutorial?
I remember you asking about math_nodes. Did you get them installed? Do they help in this case?
sorry, i was happy to early about the tutorial…
the dynamic pivot works, but only when its not keyframed…
when it comes to keyframing the rotation of the cube is scrambled up.
the math-nodes problem was for maya 2017. in maya 2018 they load up. i have to have a look to that…
I didn’t read all the replies, but just in case. did you try to expose and keyframe the rotate pivot and rotate pivot translate? you dont need anything else, no scripts or complex rig
I hope this helps 
hi miquel,
thanks for this…this would be my next try…
but i think that this will work only, if the cube makes 90 degree steps in one axis…if i want to rotate freely on an the edge/corner or animate some throwing dices this will become very tidous…