Hello, I’m sure I didn’t have this problem before. Try to do this:

1.- Create a box;
2.- rotate it about 40 degrees on “y” axis.
3.- activate autoKey button
4.-Change the coordinate system to local.
5.-Rotate the box a few turns around the local “z” axis (this is to see the effect...),
6.- play the animation.

What happens is not the way you rotated the box, instead of rotating around one axis it rotates around all of them.
I have found some solutions but I don`t like them… here is a link where some questions are answered in case you want to know:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/ser...id=5582534&linkID=9241177

Well here are some solutions the easiest one is to change the rotation controller to TCB rotation.
The other one is to flat zero the keys in the track view as explained in the link above.
I have found in max documentation another solution which worked fine at first but when I tried to do some wiring it messed up again. this solution consist in adding look constraint to the object, then adding a float list controller and finally a Euler xyz controller, then under the prs rollout, click on rotation button, then under euler parameter rollout change the order to ZYX and choosing the x axis as first.

I’m making test of rotations… and I have noticed that the box rotates In the axis of the world… I think but I dont know Why?....
I have tried to do this on Maya and it works just fine.

Well I would appreciate any help from you guys!! thanks.

TCB rotation is what you want for simple animation.
If you need Euler XYZ, Link the Box to a Dummy aligned to the Pivot Point of the Box. Rotate the Dummy. Animate the rotation of the Box.

Or, go to the Motion panel and change the Axis order of the Euler Parameters. In your example, ZXZ on Rotation Z produces the desired rotation on Z after first rotating on X.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

Tim_Wilbers 04 February 2009 11:57 AM

TCB rotation is what you want for simple animation.
If you need Euler XYZ, Link the Box to a Dummy aligned to the Pivot Point of the Box. Rotate the Dummy. Animate the rotation of the Box.

Or, go to the Motion panel and change the Axis order of the Euler Parameters. In your example, ZXZ on Rotation Z produces the desired rotation on Z after first rotating on X.

Thanks a lot for your advices, this brought me some questions.... How did you know that zxz would work?… this technique works but what if i try to animate rotations in different axis .. for example z then y and then again z or other.. ?… This just get crazy rotations… What I need is to wire this object to a parameter to control the number of cycles… but when i do this I get crazy rotations.

I remember back on max 7 this didnt happen… why autodesk changed the way eulerxyz behaves? does this bring advantages to animations?? because I cant understand why is this happening…

well this topic is not a problem I have to solve right now ,but I want to know how rotations work within max for future problems.

Have a look at this gimbal Link

musashidan 06 February 2009 04:28 PM

Have a look at this gimbal Link

Thanks for helping.... now I realize this is all soft problems!! ho ho ho! thanks a lot… still I don´t get the advantages of using this eulerxyz controller besides the ability to manage separate axis for keying.