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[Old Codger]

I made a simple figure. It's a house with a door on the front (like so many houses ). Just now I am not interested in making a movie. I just want to shoot a still of the house with the door partly open. Can I even do that? If so, how do I "grab" the door to open it? I just tried to put the figure into a scene but could not for the life of me figure out how to make the door open.

I know the name of the program is "Anim8or" and all but just now I want to make stills. Of what I hope are "rigged" models (figures?). How might one go about doing that?

Oh, and sorry for all the stupid questions. I may be 69 years of age but at some level I am the world's oldest 5-year-old. Got kicked out of a class in Pascal programming at Austin Community College once for asking "too d***ed many questions!" (the instructor's words). When in a class I have a direct, unbuffered link between the question flag in my head and my right arm/hand. Guaranteed maximum 10 nanosecond delay from flag-set to hand-raise.

[Steve]

There are two main ways to do this. Both need a house without the door, and the door, as separate Objects. Then:

First method:

1. Position the door in the Object editor so that the axis that you want it to rotate around (where the hinges would be) is at X=0.
2. Add the house and the door to a Scene.
3. Select Object Coordinates (hot key "o") and the Y-axis only (hot key "y"). Enable the Rotate tool (hot key "r"), select the door, and click-drag vertically with the mouse to open and close it.

Second method:

1. Build a Figure with two added bones. Add the door to one bone and the house to the other. Then when you rotate the bone with the door the door will rotate as well.

[RudySchneider]

First off, think in terms of what makes up the object you want to animate.  Does a house come complete with doors, windows, curtains, tables and chairs, lamps?  No, these are all separate entities that one "constructs," and each may be manipulated separately.  It's also important to be mindful of "parenting" objects.  That is, the house is the parent of a door.  This way, if you must move or reorient the "body" of the house, all of the objects it "parents" move along with it.

Not that it's a particularly good example, but here's a little animation I threw together in 2012, which has multiple "generations" of parent-child relationships.

Oh, I suppose I should also mention that there are no bones used here.

[Old Codger]

The problem, Steven and Rudy, is that once I'm in the scene and have the house with bones sitting where I want it, how do I grab the bone to move it? I'm not animating just posing. I tried having the bones visible and tried selecting one of the bones but no joy. I cannot figure out to grab the bone to move it. What am I missing. I have little doubt it will be a flat forehead moment when I finally "get" it.

[AlecJames]

In the scene editor, click on rotate bone <R>.


Click on your bone and the rotate bone gizmo will appear.



Click on one of the rotation rings and drag it to rotate the bone.

[Old Codger]

Did you guys hear it when I smacked myself in the forehead? I don't know where Rudy lives but Steven is in California (Silicon Valley?) and surely he heard me. Just after I launched my reply it occurred to me that in my earlier attempts I had not turned on "Rotate Bone". Once I enabled "Rotate Bone" (and switched to the top view where the move axis would be visible) the bones lit up and I was able to pose the doors (in this case the figure was of a cargo container) as evidenced by the attached jpeg.

[RudySchneider]

Ah, a head-smack moment.  Not to worry, I've had PLENTY of those myself!

[Steve]

Old Codger I heard it - wondered what it was! But I've been in Lucca, Italy, since mid August