Keep 3DLuVr online!
3DLuVr Logo
Sections
Articles
 From the Real World
 Digital Painting Series
 Featuring of...
 On the Bookshelf
Tutorials
 3ds max
 LightWave3D
 Softimage XSI
 Rhinoceros 3D
 Video Tutorials
FunZone menu
 I always wanted to be
 Talk to an employer
 Why Ask "Why"
TechZone menu
 Hardware Reviews
 Software Reviews
 Benchmarking
 Q&A, Tips & Tricks
UserZone menu
 The Artist Sites
 15 Min of Fame
 Request an Account
 Current Assignment
 Sponsors & Prizes
 Make a Submission
 Voting Booth
 Competition Rules
About menu
 Mission Statement
 Policies
 Advertising
 Comments
 Poll Archive
 Links
 How to IRC
 Donations
Login
Log in to be able to post comments to the news items, forum posts, and other facilities.
Username: 
 
Password: 
Not registered? Register!     Lost Password?
Poll
 Your New Year`s Resolution is...
Gain employment
Stop smoking/drinking/etc
Get back in shape
Find the meaning of life
Conquer the World
Absolutely nothing

    Poll Results
Comments
Want to leave us a comment about the site or in general? Click here to access the form.
ArtZone Heading
Creating a Realistic Animated Cable/Rope/Flex
Added on: Tue Dec 04 2001
Page: 1 2 3 5 

Go into subobject mode and select the vertices at the other end of the wire - the end that we want to remain motionless (as if plugged into a computer) and make a New vertex group. Click on this (group_01) and then scroll down to the Attached box and tick it. Click the empty space and then select the desktop plane.
Tick Attach to surface and Attach by Pos.This locks the end vertices where they are as they are noe connected to the desk, and the desk aint going anywhere. (of course it's up to you what you connect it to, it could be another moving object).

Now we need to enter some animation for our mouse object. I used the Motion Capture feature in the utilities panel to capture my own mouse movements, but any other form of animation is valid. Nothing to fast or jerky for now, but make it last for about 100 frames to get an idea of the flow of the wire.

Select the wire and in the Sim Cloth roll out hit "Start Calculation". If all has gone well you can watch the computer solve the wire dynamics as the mouse moves. As the shape is 3 sided the solution should be quite fast. You may get some errors at this stage, these are explained in the Sim Cloth documentation and may need some tweaking of settings.

After the solution is finished hit play and watch your simulation. (on slower computers you may want to render a preview) It's unlikely that you'll get the right results first time - more often than not the wire will move too fluidly. Increasing the Slip, Gravity, and Air resistance will illeviate this.

Again reading the Sim cloth documentation will give a better idea of what these effects actually do. Remember to Clear the sim before trying new settings or wierd things can happen.

When your sim looks good add a Nurms mesh smooth modifier on top of the Sim Cloth. Our triangular wire becomes a hexagonal wire.
You can step up the iterations, but it looks fine like this for the most part. IMPORTANT: Do not go back and tweak Sim Cloth settings with Meshsmooth on top of the stack - Sim Cloth should always be at the top or all manner of horrible things can happen.






 
� 1997-2024 3DLuVrTM (Three Dee Lover)
Best viewed in 1024x768 or higher,
using any modern CSS compliant browser.