Hi everyone,

I am currently building a model of a helicopter and am in the process of making the helicopter fly in a circuit and return to the helipad that it started on.

I am attempting to make the helicopter tilt on it's side a little while the helicopter begins to move in an arc (as this is how a real helicopter would behave), but I seem to be having an issue in doing so.

My helicopter is made up of 3 meshes: 1 for the rear propeller, one for the top propeller, and one for the entire body of the helicopter. When I make the helicopter tilt, I want all of these parts to rotate around a single axis that is "local" to the median point of the 3 parts. However, each of the parts seems to rotate around its own local axis, which is obviously providing me with incorrect results, as the propellers appear to be flying off the helicopter.

Is there any way to select multiple meshes/objects in Blender and make them all rotate around the same axis (but not the global axis), either an axis local to the median point or even a local axis to just a single mesh (in this case I would be happy to have them all rotate locally around the body)?

Thanks

Have you got the rotors and rear prop parented to the main body of the ’copter?

No I don't because when I select the body followed by the rotor (one at a time), and then press Ctrl+P to parent, the propeller relocates itself a fair way away from the position that it's currently in.

So I have come to the conclusion that parenting is not an option. I have also tried joining the meshes, rotating the joined mesh around the desired axis, and then separating them again, but then the armature that I have patented to the propeller (to enable me to rotate the propellers) no longer remains parented.

So I guess now I should be asking for help with my first question OR the problem that I am having with the parenting, as I am aware that parenting would fix my problem

Select the rotor first (child), then the body (parent).

When I do that, the rotor moves or rotates slightly away from it's current position (I can't win! Lol), although the properties window still shows the location and rotation to have the same values (it's just that I can see it physically move when I perform the parenting)

When I do that, the rotor moves or rotates slightly away from it's current position (I can't win! Lol), although the properties window still shows the location and rotation to have the same values (it's just that I can see it physically move when I perform the parenting)

Have you considered parenting all parts to an empty? Otherwise you may have to use an armature system.

Yeah I have but that also wasn't working. I already tried an armature system too but the body was relocating slightly as described before for the propeller.

I have simply decided to start again, this time parenting at the first frame so that any relocation of the propeller on the body of the chopper is consistent throughout the entire animation.

Thanks for your help.

Hi,
I realize this is a few months old, I just happened to stumble across it, and youve started over. But, I have had that issue before, which had a rather simple fix. (in my case at least)
In object mode, go to the object menu, then Apply, then choose rotation and scale.
Hope it helps in the future for you or someone else having a similar issue.