Coil o' rope (with authentic cartoon Egyptian snake music!)

[HomeSlice]

No... I considered making a chain using Newton Dynamics, but not the Dynamic Constraint... hmm. Now I am wondering how I would go about such an undertaking.

 

Dynamic constraints allow for more control, and you have to fiddle less than with cloth, but you have to do a bunch more rigging set up and hand animating of Target Nulls if you want more control.

 

Make a bone for each chain link and assign the CPs for each link to its bone. You will have two bone chains, one for each side of the ring. Start the bone chains at the dog tag (unless you want the tag to dangle in space. I'm just going off of the video you posted). Probably don't need to spend much (if any) time on weighting. It's tedious but if the chain is on a flat plane in the model window, it goes by pretty quickly.

 

If you need some control over it, make a Null and place it near the tip of the last bones, which should be the bones farthest away from the tag. Make two more nulls and place them near the center of each of the bone chains, at the tip of a bone. Depending on how much control you need, you may have to place more nulls. Name the nulls something meaningful, like "End Control", "Middle Left Control" or whatever.

 

Make a new ON/OFF pose named Dynamics. Select the end bone in each chain and assign a dynamic constraint to it. For "Target", select the "End Control" null. For Constraint Type, choose "None". When you do this, you will have to hand animate the Control Null to create a realistic swinging action. If you *Don't* assign the Dynamic Constraint to a Target, it will just naturally swing around like a real chain - but you can't control it much.

 

If you want to drape the chain over stuff, select the bones whose tips are touching the Middle Control Nulls and create additional dynamic constraints for them. For the Targets, choose the Middle Control Nulls. Add more Nulls and Dynamic Constraints as necessary.

 

In a Chor, control the chain with the Control nulls. You have to have some animation skill because most of the movement is being controlled by you.

The downside is - LOTS of bones and you have to hand animate the Control Nulls.

The upside is - it isn't nearly as fiddly as cloth and you have a lot more control.

 

This tutorial covers how to do all that

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29914

[robcat2075]

Ehhhh... on the contrary, that clip kinda highlights how AM cloth isn't anywhere NEAR the cloth tools available to the "big boys" in terms of practical usability. The jittery-ness of cloth-on-cloth trying to figure out how to sit still, for example.

 

 

how about this?

 

QuieterRope_500.mov

 

One of the problems A:M has is that people look at a test by a novice and presume A:M is the limiting factor. There's lots to know about getting simulations right and I'm a novice. This clip is VERY near what a finished result should be and I'm just a novice trying things.

 

 

The simulations you see in movies are done by people who do just that as their day job. They spend lots of time coaxing the simulations to get it right. I was looking at the manual for "nCloth", the simulator you get for "Maya Ultimate" and that seems to have pretty much the same controls and same limitations as our "simCloth". You gotta learn to use it and you gotta start small. They start people out with a flag just like A:M does.

 

I can't think of a scene in a movie where a simulated cloth or rope is thrown out and then the camera just stares at it while it's doing nothing. They cut away as soon as the action is done. I can't find a demo like that on youtube either. Can you?

[fae_alba]

I can't think of a scene in a movie where a simulated cloth or rope is thrown out and then the camera just stares at it while it's doing nothing. They cut away as soon as the action is done. I can't find a demo like that on youtube either. Can you?

 

That's pretty much the thought I had..the jitter footage always ends up on the editing room floor. and your point of the time spent is also good...they're not kidding when they say it takes weeks to get a few seconds animated....and you did this in a few days. To me that shows the strength of A:M

[John Bigboote]

THANKS HOLMES!

 

DANG...Rob, that's quite good!

[Paul Forwood]

Those rope tests are amazing, Robert!

[itsjustme]

Great tests!

[Meowx]

how about this?

 

QuieterRope_500.mov

Looking really sharp!

 

Like I said, no love lost for A:M. And make no mistake, I'm well versed in the trail and error process that accompanies stuff like getting everything to look right in cloth simulations.

 

"Staying still" was bad phrasing by me; I meant more the character staying still than the cloth itself. End results like these:

are something I'd be very, very impressed by someone pulling off with A:M cloth in anywhere near the amount of time it would take in something like Maya (or at all). Or something like this:

 

There was actually one clip in particular that just about made me cry, like, WOW. I wish I could do that with A:M. Can't find it. It was an arm, flexing at the elbow joint with a very finely meshed silk shirt blowing and rippling around the arm as it pivoted back and forth.

 

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE everything A:M can do, and appreciate it, its creator, and its community to absolutely no end. A:M cloth is absolutely fantastic considering it doesn't have an entire fully funded development team behind it. But beyond simple uses, it can get a bit ehhhh.

[robcat2075]

"Staying still" was bad phrasing by me; I meant more the character staying still than the cloth itself. End results like these:

are something I'd be very, very impressed by someone pulling off with A:M cloth in anywhere near the amount of time it would take in something like Maya (or at all). Or something like this:

 

I don't see anything there that can't be done.

 

That first guy has a bunch of pass thrus.

[Animus]

Amazing tests! Thank you for that exploration, it benefits everybody.

 

Michel

[animas3D]

P.S. What's the chance you do a tutorial on this one?

 

maybe when I write my book.

 

Seriously Rob, are you really working on a book? That would be great.

[thefreshestever]

very impressive results!!! looks like "big boy stuff" to me

[Darkwing]

How would this work for making a lasso? That's something I'm curious to see

[robcat2075]

How would this work for making a lasso? That's something I'm curious to see

 

I'm sure there is some clever way to do that.