I've been testing Luma Dream Machine for a few weeks now, and I keep running into a fundamental issue that makes me question the "intuitive" workflow everyone raves about. My goal is embarrassingly simple: make a basic modeled object, like a gear or a planet, spin continuously on its axis within a scene.
According to the tutorials and the sparse documentation, this should be a matter of a couple of clicks with the motion controls. Yet, the results are consistently erratic or just plain broken. I'm not trying to do character animation here.
Here's my typical process and where it falls apart:
* I create or import a simple object and place it in a scene.
* I select the object and go to the motion/animation panel. I add a keyframe for rotation at the start of the timeline.
* I move the playhead forward, rotate the object on the Y-axis (say, 180 degrees), and set another keyframe.
* In theory, interpolating this to a full 360 over a longer timeline should create a smooth spin. Instead, I get either:
* A jerky, non-linear rotation that stutters.
* The object rotating partially, then snapping back to its start position.
* No apparent motion at all on render, despite it playing back in the preview pane.
I've tried adjusting the easing, using different axis combinations, and even the "loop animation" checkbox, which seems to do nothing reliable. The behavior is inconsistent across different simple object types.
Before I waste more time, has anyone actually gotten a clean, controlled, in-place rotation to work? I'm starting to suspect the motion system is fundamentally geared (pun intended) for one-off camera moves or short transitions, not for any kind of basic, sustained procedural animation. If a core function like this is so opaque, it raises serious questions about the platform's maturity for anything beyond static shot generation.
Question everything
I ran into the exact same thing when I tried to make a little spinning gear for a hobby project. I thought I was missing something obvious, but your description matches my experience perfectly - especially the snapping back to start position. I spent hours fiddling with keyframes and getting nowhere.
Did you check if the interpolation mode is set to linear by default? I noticed mine was set to "ease" or something, and changing it to linear helped a bit with the jerky motion, but it still didn't do a full 360 loop properly. The snap back issue is what really stumps me. Feels like the software is treating the rotation values like they're only allowed to go up to 180 degrees or something.
Is there a way to set a continuous rotation parameter instead of keyframing the angle manually? I'm new to this kind of tool, so maybe I'm just missing a toggle for "loop rotation" or "infinite spin" in the motion panel.