I was wondering about how long it would take to create a detailed animation of an electrical mechanism, Like the mechanism of a tape recorder, showing all the gears, capacitors, resistors etc, in OpenGL? The animation should enable the end user to zoom in and out and everything should be in 3d (no mapping of a photograph of the circuit onto a quad). Now this is to be acheived by someone who is adept to programming OpenGL. I need to know because I would have been asked if possible to create it in the future within a reasonable time limit and I need to decide on whether to pursue it. Would OpenGL be the ideal solution to this or is there a software that is specifically meant for animations like that? If someone has a similar example I would like to see it. Thanks.

You should make the model of the taperecorder in a 3d modelling app like 3d studio max. Create a small opengl app which can load 3ds files and should let you move the camera around. If you use the nehe basecode, the only thing you would need to do is code a 3ds file loader and renderer, and a camera system. The time it will take ? If you''ve got experience with OpenGL you can probably do the code in a week (if not faster) and for the 3d modeling, get somebody who''s good in it.(I dunno how long it will take, I''m a coder not a modeler).

Thanks George.
How hard is it to learn to model in 3d studio max?
I also need animation of moving gears, screws getting put into the circuit etc. Like there are certain wholes in the circuit board, I would need to make a moving animation of a screw being put into the hole and then a gear moving on a circuit board.
I guess my whole question is that; does something like this take a year to develop or can it be done in say 2-3 weeks?
I don't have any idea about this because I am a newbie to OpenGL.
Thanks again.

Edited by - mAdMaLuDaWg on February 6, 2002 3:47:52 PM

I thought autocad does only still 3d images. In other words you wouldn''t be able to animate it. Perhaps put it into an avi but to give the end user an independent file and interact with it, no.
Could you or anyone else answer my Qs please?
Thanks.