Preparing a Luminaire Assembly

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A luminaire assembly is a special type of object that groups together several objects, such as a light and its housing, into one entity. The assembly object itself has parameters for controlling the light's intensity and color.

For the light assembly to be truly interactive, you should be able to pose the light fixture simply by moving the light's target to point in the appropriate direction. When you move the target, the light housing should rotate and swivel appropriately.

To create this type of luminaire assembly, you must first set up an inverse kinematics (IK) relationship between the parts of the light. In this tutorial, you will learn how to set up an IK relationship between light parts, and prepare a model for luminaire assembly. You can learn how to create the luminaire assembly in the lesson Creating a Luminaire Assembly.

Skill Level: Intermediate

Time to complete: 30 minutes

Features Covered in This Tutorial

After completing this tutorial, you should be able to:

Set pivot points, linkage, and joint constraints for inverse kinematics.
Apply the HD IK solver to a model.
Set up sliding joint constraints.

Tutorial Files

All the files necessary to do the tutorials can be found on the program disc in the \tutorials\mech_design folder, unless otherwise specified. Before doing the tutorials, copy the \tutorials directory from the disc to your local program installation.

Lessons in This Tutorial

Preparing the Model

Setting Up IK

Setting Up Sliding Joints