Someone must know how to set up one of these. I just need a central axle and 4 “paddles” around it (extending out radially from the axle). The whole thing should rotate around the axle when an object with a rigidbody lands on a paddle. (Instead of water moving it, imagine marbles.)
Hinge joints didn’t work for me. (First time using them; they seem pretty skittish, based on the angle my “waterwheel” wound up hanging at!)
If you have colliders set up correctly on the paddles and wheel, a hinge joint should work quite nicely for this. What exactly is the wheel doing when the marbles hit it?
I’m at work right now; I’ll post a demo project tonight. Thanks Andeeee!
If you want more fine control over your waterwheel, you could try to add a motor to the hinge joint and turn it on when your marble collides. That is going on an assumption that you’re just letting it spin freely.
It’s just the hinge joint that I can’t get working. I’d really like it to spin freely.
(In fact, it’s a “spinner” in a Pachinko game. The metal ball hits it, makes it spin, and the ball bounces off at a different angle.)
That should be incredibly simple to achieve then. As you mentioned it’s your first hinge joint then it’s probably something to do with how you’re going about things. Post some details and pictures of your setup so we can see it.
Hinge joints are a piece of cake. It’s the configurable joints that scare the hell out of me.
That isn’t the look I’m going for. 
FYI, the “cross” (4 flattened cubes) is supposed to spin around the “axle” (narrow cylinder in the middle) when a ball hits one of the “paddles” (flattened cubes). Instead, the “cross” shudders, falls on its side, and slowly slides downwards.
You can see the object I’ve selected in the Hierarchy is called “spinning part”. That contains the 4 “paddles” (Cube 1-4) I mentioned above. Here are the components for all of the game objects from “Spinner” down to “Cube 4”:
Spinner – empty game object
axle – Cylinder, Capsule Collider, Mesh Renderer
spinning part – Rigidbody with gravity disabled
Cube 1 – Cube, Box Collider, Mesh Renderer
Cube 2 – Cube, Box Collider, Mesh Renderer
Cube 3 – Cube, Box Collider, Mesh Renderer
Cube 4 – Cube, Box Collider, Mesh Renderer
A couple days ago I gave up on the hinge, so my scene doesn’t include that. If you can upload a pic of how to use configure a hinge, or give me a really good description, I sure would appreciate it! (A package I could download would be excellent.) Or if you have another solution I’d welcome that too. Thanks!!!
Ages ago I posted a little demo of a hinge joint (here; you have to look at the scene view to see anything when running it). It’s not the same thing as a paddle wheel, but it might get you going.
–Eric
Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, it’s Mac and I use a PC at home. Files won’t uncompress. I’ll try it tomorrow at work (where I use a Mac).
Use something other than Window’s built-in unzip, which is kind of lacking.
–Eric
I just tried your demo, and even created my own “waterwheel”. Boy that was simple! I wonder what I was doing wrong before? I wonder if I just set the wrong axis on the hinge?
Anyway, thanks a bunch!