Object follows one paht, and than another.

[akaija-art]

Hi to all,

I have two circular paths and an object needs to follow both paths, first the horizontal red path, then the tilted orange path.

So first it follows the horizontal path or ring. It makes a few rounds, and then I want it to follow the second path. This path/ring has the exact same circular size, but it’s tilted.

One way to do this would be to use the ‘follow path’ constraint and at the junction the first object would disappear and the second object follows the tilted path. For an normal animation this works fine.

However, I’m using a particle system and the particle-stream interrupts when changing from one object to the next. It needs to be the same object.

So I thought of using an empty in the centre make it the parent by ctrl-P, and all I need to do is rotate the empty, and at the junction (where the ball is located in the picture) change direction.

And that… is where things become complicated.

How do I change the rotation of the empty such that the object follows the second, tilted path?

What would you do?

[Adrian Bellworthy]

Hey @akaija-art
I would do exactly what you have done, but with 2 follow path constraints, 1 for each path.
1 frame before the paths intersect, Keyframe the influence at 1 on the first path and 0 on the second, then on the next frame switch it to 0 on the first and 1 on the second.

[Martin Bergwerf]

I’d probably use just one Path (as both your Paths are ‘the same’) and Keyframe the Rotation of the Curve (mind where you place the Origin of the Curve).

[Adrian Bellworthy]

Another example of ‘More than one way to do anything in Blender’.

My thought process is like a train travelling along a track, at an intersection it switches to another track. 
Thus giving the switching from one constraint to the other.

Spikey’s is simpler in you only have one track, and just rotate the track to the new position.

In this case either would work. But it depends if you still need the first track for another object or not.

[akaija-art]

Thanks to both of you! I just experimented with Adrian’s influence setting and succeeded in making it work. And the second option, changing the tilt of the first curve is indeed another approach (why didn’t I think of that before! 🙂 ), but as Adrian already expected…. I still need the first curve.

Anyway… I can move one now.

[Author]

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