Truck Platform Rigging

[rkirk77]

Hi guys,

I am trying to figure out how to make a bone system for this truck here..

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/4934/nukelauncher.jpg

What i want is to make the missile raise up to a "launch position" . I have been trying to figure out how to make a piston connected to a platform that raisies it up, but i have no idea how to make the bones system that will match.

I made and animation here (without the bones) to illustrate what i would like to achieve.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMLHsgCQrMc&feature=channel_video_title

[roxo]

I guess Digital Tutors doesn't have a piston rigging tutorial for 3ds max (it has for maya and softimage but for max you need a different technique).
If you understand how position and orientation constraints work, then it should be easy. If you search the web for piston or muscle tutorial in 3ds max, you will see the same workflow. You need to create two points that have two cylinder connected. One cylinder is connected to one point, the other cylinder is connected to the other point but with a "look at" constraint pointing to the other point.
It's the same principle with muscles in 3ds max. You create a stretchy bone in the bone tools window with an end-bone and snap two helper points to each bone's pivot. Louis Marcoux has a great set of tutorials on rigging on his website:

Search for the muscle tutorial here:
http://www.louismarcoux.com/MaxTips.htm

Here's a random youtube tutorial with a simpler but messy worflow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0zhIOU3fDg