The Razorback – Part 5: Steering Mechanism Linkages

In this video we look more closely at the steering mechanism linkages. We start out by creating a few ball joints and linkages for the steering. We then work on the rigging of the linkages via some Xpresso and the Range Mapper node.

Covered in this video:

• Creating some instanced geometry for the push rod ball joints (linkages) that connect the servo motors to the fork tubes.
• Modeling the ends of the linkages where the ball and socket mechanism exists.
• Adjusting the Phong smoothing tag and creating some low-poly geometry for the aforementioned parts.
• Using a Target tag expression with an up vector to ensure that the push rods behave in a believable manner.
• Using an Xpresso Range Mapper to adjust the travel of the push rods in a non linear fashion (In a very ad-hoc way).
• District 9 & Firefall as inspiration for geometry at arbitrary angles.