Constraining the end of a rope to another object

[mattdleonard]

I am trying to create an animation of a rope with one end locked to a heavy block which can't move and the other end a smaller but still heavyish block that will fall dragging the rope with it.

I was thinking of creating the rope out of a softbody tube but I can't figure out how to lock one end to a object that doesn't move and other end to an object which has a greater mass then the rope.

Parenting doesn't seam to work, the rope just falls way as if it isn't connected at all.

Any suggestions ?

Many thanks

Matt D. Leonard

Digitial Dreams & Visions

[msimon]

I'm not sure I understand you correctly. You want to have one end of the rope immobile, and the other end mobile. The problem here is that ropes are not very elastic. Do you want the rope to swing instead of fall, or both? I think that there is a way to make this work. You will need to create the rope softbody with a goal rope surface which remains attached to the heavier block. Then, set the pivot of the softbody at the opposite (bottom-most) end of the rope. Next, create a single particle, position it at the rope softbody pivot, and connect it's world centroid to the softbody's translate attributes. This is explained in the Dynamics manual. Then connect the single particle to a gravity field. Try some type of variation on this technique, with different per particle goal weights for the softbody.

[pseudosuperman]

There is a tutorial on this site called "how to model a chord attached at both ends" that may offer an easier solution. I think you'll be happy with the results.
-Josh
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[sid69g]

for one I would use cloth for the rope because it has some pretty good constraint capability- see your other post for more explanation as to why- but if you are set on using soft bodies use clusters to constrain the ends of the rope/ say for example you said one end is constrained to an obj that doesnt move, ok- select the object you want to contrain the end of the rope to and then go into component mode and shift select the end verticies of the soft bodie rope go to Deform>Create Cluster, this will hold those vertices to that position- then the object at the other end that is moving do the same- with a cluster locking both ends one to a stationary object one to an object that is animated the softbodies should allow for the rope to update between- even if you are using dynamics to weight the object moveing- any probs Drop a reply-

-sid69 sid69graphic@yahoo.com
student @ Ex'pression Center for New Media xnewmedia.com