Anime DreamsFlash animations, Photoshop tricks, cartooning, and graphics fun

Juxtaposition - Adding Audio Clips to Your Website

I really wanted to add audio to my blogs, and needed a solution that would work across most, if not all, browsers. Flash was the natural choice since it seems to provide cross browser compatability, and Swishmax was the easiest way to cobble together a quick test.

Simulating Linkages with SwishMax/Flash

Radio Control Car Steering Linkage
January 24, 2005
Ref: http://isobe.typepad.com/robotics

The basic geometry was constructed based on a photo from a magazine article. Most of the mechanism is symetrical, so most of the pieces were designed then copied and mirrored. To simulate the actual linkage operation the transformation point for each piece was set to its center of rotation using the custom setting in SwishMax. Then each piece was moved and/or rotated in turn starting from the servo connecting rod and proceeding logically through the entire mechanism.

As a ‘quick and dirty’ simulation this approach worked extremely well. It took less than an hour to construct and animate. There are some minor mismatches at the joints that could be improved with more work.

Another approach to this animation would be to use software like Moho that has linked mechanisms built-in. The model construction would be more challenging, but the results would be almost perfect since Moho takes care of all the anchoring, motion, feedback, and constraints.