Craft CogWheels
Manual

Craft CogWheels is a passive Utility that enables a rotation transfer from one cog to another (located anywhere in space).
Craft CogWheels can be used for creating a set of cogwheels interacting with each other, creating multiple rotors for airborne vehicles and even proper gears for a bicycle.

Using Craft CogWheels
Configure

Using Craft CogWheels

Optimizing the scene

It’s wise to optimize the scene before starting to recording the animation. The scene is optimized by decreasing the amount of polygons shown during the recording. This is achieved by hiding objects not crucial to the part of the scene to be animated. Another tip is to use Craft Bounding Poly, which temporary lowers the amount of polygons for selected objects and allows for a smoother recording.

Create a Cylinder with Sides: 32 and Height Segments: 1.
Create a second Cylinder with Sides: 16 and Height Segments: 1.
Modify the Cylinder meshes into Cogwheels meshes.
- 3ds Max:
  Convert both Cylinder meshes into Editable mesh.
- Select every other face on the Cylinders and Extrude them as shown in the image below:
- Maya:
  Hold down the right mouse button on the Cylinder and select Face.
- Select every other face on the Cylinders and Extrude them as shown in the image below:
- Hold down the right mouse button on the Cylinder and select Object mode to exit the modification mode of the mesh.
In Craft Director Studio’s main window, from the Accessories create icon, select Craft CogWheels.
Position the first Cylinder (32 faces) on top of ActiveCog.
Position the second Cylinder (16 faces) on top of PassiveCog.
Scale ActiveCog so that its outer edge is at the outer edge of the first Cylinder’s cogs.
Scale PassiveCog so that its outer edge is at the inner edge of the second Cylinder’s cogs.
Link/parent the first Cylinder to ActiveCog.
Link/parent the second Cylinder to PassiveCog.
Select PassiveCog and scale it to 50% of ActiveCog’s size.
In the Craft Director Studio main window click on the Configure button to open Craft CogWheels configuration window. In the configuration window, click the button Attach cogs. Close down the configuration window.
Select PassiveCog and rotate it so that its cogs are nicely matched with ActiveCog’s.
Select ActiveCog and create some rotation keyframes for it so that is has an animation.
Move the time slider back to the beginning of the animation.
Click Record in Craft Director Studio’s main window to start recording. Craft CogWheels’s movement will be saved during the duration of the recording. Click Stop to stop the recording.
Render.