With a couple of enthusiasts, we are exploring old/rare/vintage toys, just for fun.
Some like diving into old paper achieves, finding unscanned information of at least 100 years old.
Since most of these toys are difficult to find, we started to virtualize them.
So now everyone could build with some of these old toys too.
For playing with these toys, a custom LDraw library is created. With LeoCAD 3D models could be build, using these libraries. For showcasing these vintage buildings on the web, the GLB format seems to best.
Yes, I’ve seen animated trains on tracks.
(But need a train first and need to learn about adding nice textures etc..)
Is it also possible to hide some of the meshes, during animation?
Then it might be possible to create a ‘build up’ kind of animation..
Or stepwise (button click) would be even more interesting.
(Step information could then even come from LeoCAD, making the conversion even more simple.)
I use Blender to create and animate my models and (if this is what you are asking) I have used meshes as “hinges” for animations. Sometimes, they are hidden. Sometimes, they are made part of the object (e.g. a bolt). Here is an animated landing gear (press G to see the animation). The animation is created in Blender and activated in three.js. You could use this approach to create animated wheels on a locomotive. Or the animation on a coin bank.
I believe Blender also has dimensionless objects which you can use for this purpose - but I have not tried that yet. You could also use a custom rig to animate objects. I have used that approach to animate models of people, but not other objects.
You can also create animations in three.js. I have done that for simple animations and for things like waving flags where three.js is manipulating the geometry.
