[Fade]

I'm sure everyone must have encountered this problem...

Have you ever been positioning an object you intend to animate, only to find that one rotational axis seems to be 'inside' another and you can't use it? Furthermore, when you try to move the different axis around so that you then *can* rotate in the correct direction, the adjustments make your object face in completely the wrong direction or something similar.

Example Attached.

So, what is this, why does it happen, and how can it be avoided or recovered from?

Cheers!

[Mark]

The phenomenon (doo, doo, do, do, do, phenomenon, do, do, do doooo - sorry, having a muppett moment there )

Let's start again...

The phenomenon is known as 'Gimbal Lock' and is a product of the calculations that Lightwave uses to compute its rotational angles. I don't pretend to know all the theory, so this page should give you more than enough information:

http://www.anticz.com/eularqua.htm

Unfortunately I can't tell you how to get out of a Gimbal lock situation. Anyone else here have an answer?

[Kvaalen]

Just set the Coordinate system to local.

If I am not wrong, I think LightWave [8] will be having the possibility to fix this (another system of rotating)... maybe.

[Fade]

hmm, i suspected thats what it might be. I had read a little bit about it, very annoying. Thanks for info!