slinging webs or Tasers
#1
I'm looking to create a system that will shoot a string from 1 specific point to another specific point and then follow the the dynamics of a rope system.

Both point A and B will be moving independently and I need the middle to act like rope dynamics.

tyFlow_splines_003 example file is a good start, but I need to have control over both ends of the rope. What I am creating is a simulation of a taser gun firing 2 projectiles with wires attached to them spooling out from the gun. It's an interesting problem and I was wondering what the best approach would be. I tried creating two particles and a find target with spawn on each but I can't control the other end of the spawn system.

Any ideas? Thanks!
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#2
When your string is done spawning, prior to deleting the parent particle spawn one last child and send it to an event where it's deactivated. May want to deactivate the first particle too. That way either ends of your string are deactivated and you can do whatever you want with them (attach them to an object or whatever) and the sibling particles between them are all dynamic.

Here is a simple setup you can example which accomplishes just that.


Attached Files
.max   taser.max (Size: 772 KB / Downloads: 238)
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#3
That works exactly! So cool. Tyflow is amazing. Now for the harder part. In the reference of the taser the wires have a "memory" from being wound-up. How in the heck would one think about trying to achieve this? Here is some photo reference:

https://www.mlive.com/politics/2012/05/c..._in_m.html
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#4
That's a lot trickier of a problem, might make more sense for you to just convert the bindings to splines and then use a path deform modifier to spread a crinkled wire along the straight binding spline to fake it.

However, if you conjoin every nth sibling particle (where n > 1) together with a binding that has a shrunken length, you can achieve a crinkling effect. Luckily tyFlow's Particle Bind operator allows you to define sibling proximity, to add additional bindings every nth sibling particle.

Examine the attached file and you'll see I've added 2 additional sets of sibling particles (proximity 2 and 3 with an ID of 1) and used a Modify Bindings operator to shrink their length over time. As you'll see when you playback the animation the wire gets crinkled. If you go this route, remember when meshing the bindings with a Spline Paths operator, to filter by ID (0) or else the secondary crinkle bindings will get meshed as well.


Attached Files
.max   taser.max (Size: 788 KB / Downloads: 236)
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#5
(08-30-2019, 09:49 PM)tyFlow Wrote: That's a lot trickier of a problem, might make more sense for you to just convert the bindings to splines and then use a path deform modifier to spread a crinkled wire along the straight binding spline to fake it.

However, if you conjoin every nth sibling particle (where n > 1) together with a binding that has a shrunken length, you can achieve a crinkling effect. Luckily tyFlow's Particle Bind operator allows you to define sibling proximity, to add additional bindings every nth sibling particle.

Examine the attached file and you'll see I've added 2 additional sets of sibling particles (proximity 2 and 3 with an ID of 1) and used a Modify Bindings operator to shrink their length over time. As you'll see when you playback the animation the wire gets crinkled. If you go this route, remember when meshing the bindings with a Spline Paths operator, to filter by ID (0) or else the secondary crinkle bindings will get meshed as well.

That's fantastic. This will work for sure. I figured out the spline meshing. Thanks again for creating this amazing tool. You have breathed new life into Max! I haven't been this excited to use Max in years (I've been using it since the old days before it was called Max LOL).

Fantastic work. Will it be available for sale anytime soon. I feel compelled to give you $.
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#6
Probably not that soon...still lots of features to add Smile
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