Gears

Objective:

Create two gears that are rotating and mesh together nicely and apply a gradient to give the illusion that the gear is 3-D.

Problem:

How do we the gears mesh nicely together and how do we prevent the gradient from rotating with the gear?

Solution:

We start the second gear already slightly rotated so that the teeth of the gears will not overlap. To solve the problem of the gradient rotating with the gear I cut out the ring of the gradient using a mask and made it separate from the rest of the gear to give the appearance that light source hitting the gear is static.