Articulation Commands

Articulations in a model file are dynamic transformations that can be applied to primitives or where <Articulation Name> uniquely identifies the articulation from all others in the file.

Any number of articulation commands can appear within the Articulation keyword block of a model file. The table provides a summary of the articulation commands available. Although similar in function to the transformations discussed elsewhere, these commands require a separate command for each axis to be transformed. Articulation commands define the range of movement allowed for the articulation itself. An Articulation command is formatted as:

<Articulation Command> <Articulation Command Name> <Min Value> <Init Value> <Max Value>

where <Articulation Command Name> uniquely identifies the articulation command from all other articulation commands in the model file. <Min Value> and <Max Value> determine the range of the articulation and <Init Value> defines the initial value of the articulation.

Articulation commands available in a model file

Articulation Command	Description
xTranslate	Translate the object along the x axis of the parent.
yTranslate	Translate the object along the y axis of the parent.
zTranslate	Translate the object along the z axis of the parent.
xRotate	Rotate the object about the x axis of the parent.
yRotate	Rotate the object about the y axis of the parent.
zRotate	Rotate the object about the z axis of the parent.
xScale	Scale the object along the x axis of the parent.
yScale	Scale the object along the y axis of the parent.
zScale	Scale the object along the z axis of the parent.
UniformScale	Uniformly scale the object along all axes of the parent.
xTxTranslate	Translate the texture along the x axis.
yTxTranslate	Translate the texture along the y axis.
zTxTranslate	Translate the texture along the z axis.
xTxRotate	Rotate the texture about the x axis.
yTxRotate	Rotate the texture about the y axis.
zTxRotate	Rotate the texture about the z axis.
xTxScale	Scale the texture along the x axis.
yTxScale	Scale the texture along the y axis.
zTxScale	Scale the texture along the z axis.
txUniformScale	Uniformly scale the texture along all axes.
redColorTranslate	Use redColorTranslate, greenColorTranslate, and blueColorTranslate to articulate the color of an object. Valid values are 0 through 255. You cannot have a texture map on the component being articulated.
greenColorTranslate
blueColorTranslate

The example in the listing contains articulations in both the component and primitive. The component has an articulation named CylCompArtic with one articulation command that can rotate the component about the y axis of the component’s parent within a range of -20 to 20 and an initial value of 0. The primitive has an articulation named CylPrimArtic with two articulation commands. The first command translates the texture along the x axis with a range of -0.5 to 1.5 and an initial value of 0, while the second command rotates the primitive about the z axis with a range of 30 to 100.5 and an initial value of 50.

In this sample file, both the component and primitive contain articulations.