Springs in Animation:Master.

[CodyP24]

 

Hi,

I’d like to open a discussion on creating springs in Animation:Master. Rob created a great tutorial demonstrating the bone-to-spring system, which is an older method in Animation:Master. My question is whether it would be possible to use Bullet to create springs, as they could be considered soft bodies in Animation:Master.

Thanks,

[CodyP24]

Also to add, could we also attach bones to soft bodies, such as a spring, in Animation:Master?

[robcat2075]

Describe what you want to do more clearly.
What are we going to see in this shot?

[CodyP24]

I’ve been looking into the Bone-to-Spring system in Animation:Master, which seems like a creative tool for animating dynamic motion, like tails, antennas, or flexible objects. However, since it’s a legacy system, I’m wondering what the best modern alternatives are for achieving similar effects.

Are there better ways to handle this now, such as:

Using Bullet Physics for dynamic motion and flexibility.

Setting up soft body simulations for objects like cloth or flexible materials.

Leveraging constraints or newer tools to replace the manual setup of Bone-to-Spring systems.

If you’ve transitioned away from the Bone-to-Spring system, I’d appreciate any advice or examples of workflows that achieve realistic results with less effort. Thanks in advance!

[robcat2075]

It's not a legacy system, it does what it does.

But your inquiry is very broad.  What are you trying to do...

On 11/29/2024 at 12:51 PM, robcat2075 said:

Describe what you want to do more clearly.
What are we going to see in this shot?

 

[CodyP24]

Swaying tail on a chimera. Honestly looking at bone to spring might be the best option instead of adding many constraints on row of bones. I am guessing why this system has stayed in place. I will work on modeling the tail just to play around it.

[robcat2075]

A swaying tail could be done with regular dynamic constraints. It shouldn't need a spring system for that.

[robcat2075]

Like this?

Tail001.prj

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CodyP24]

Yeah, that is it pretty much it. 

[robcat2075]

Bullet Soft Body Objects normally just fall without regard for any bones that might have been in them, so attaching a tail seems unlikely.

There is an Anchor (to a Group) option in the Soft Body constraint which would seem to be the solution, but the flexible portion seems not to be aware of motion by the anchor Group.

I did this in v19.

v19.5 has a bug that prevents opening "Target" lists for this sort of thing.

 

@CodyP24

 

[CodyP24]

Thanks for that example.

[Tom]

I tried duplicating the swinging tail but realized, when I picked "dynamic constraints" from the drop down menu, I did not know what to do next?

 

Is there a tutorial somewhere on dynamic constraints?

[robcat2075]

2 hours ago, Tom said:

I tried duplicating the swinging tail but realized, when I picked "dynamic constraints" from the drop down menu, I did not know what to do next?

 

Short version:

1. You animate the root of a chain to move around
2. you add a dynamic constraint to the last bone in a chain, either in a Pose (which must be ON in the model) or in the Chor.
3. Scrubbing the timeline will give a real time approximation of the dynamic behavior
4. To bake it in for rendering,  in the Chor and choose "Bake Dynamic Systems" and re-save your PRJ.
5.  You can un-bake a simulation with Remove Simulation Data

 

Quote

Is there a tutorial somewhere on dynamic constraints?

There is a substantial Tech Talk on the Tech Talk Page

https://forums.hash.com/topic/13249-tech-talk-series/

 

[Tom]

Hey great Rob!

I'll check it out!