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help needed with wire animation problem

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Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
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  • 2021-03-01 at 3:44 pm #38983
    samuraijkm
    Customer

    Hi devs and community,

    I am trying to animate a cord moving with my robot arm armature. I know that we cannot use modifier animations. I made a bone chain, attached it to a mesh cylinder, used spline ik bone constraint to control the armature and used another armature to control the placement of the curve. It positions it fine. I parented the armature to the base of the robot and then used a child of bone constraint on the end bone to lock it to the moving part of the arm. Works in Blender, breaks in Verge. How do I fix this ? I went through multiple scenarios and can’t get it to work right. Any ideas ? :scratch:

    Sincerely,
    Jason

    2021-03-02 at 9:02 am #39012
    Yuri Kovelenov
    Staff

    Hi,

    You need to set 0 keyframe for your main animation to synchronize with the rod animation so that they start simultaneously. Here’s fixed file:

    Attachments:
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    Chief 3D Verger | LinkedIn | Twitter

    2021-03-02 at 2:04 pm #39023
    samuraijkm
    Customer

    Hi Yuri,

    It still isn’t quite right. See the images attached. The file I sent you has the wire attached at a knob on the side of the piston. The one you sent back it’s floating in the middle of the piston.

    I thought that there might be a way to keep it aligned, but when I tried to replicate what you did, mine was in a different spot.

    Can you explain what keyframe you added frame 0 in more detail? Was it the armature of the base robot arm, was it for all the bones or just the main bone ? I’ve tried both and it still looks the same. I feel like I’m so close to figuring it out but nothing seems to be working. :unsure:

    Sincerely,
    Jason

    Attachments:
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    2021-03-02 at 2:11 pm #39032
    samuraijkm
    Customer

    glitch

    2021-03-02 at 2:16 pm #39035
    samuraijkm
    Customer

    Hi Yuri,

    It still isn’t quite right. See the images attached. The file I sent you has the wire attached at a knob on the side of the piston. The one you sent back it’s floating in the middle of the piston.

    I thought that there might be a way to keep it aligned, but when I tried to replicate what you did, mine was in a different spot.

    Can you explain what keyframe you added frame 0 in more detail? Was it the armature of the base robot arm, was it for all the bones or just the main bone ? I’ve tried both and it still looks the same. I feel like I’m so close to figuring it out but nothing seems to be working. :unsure:

    Sincerely,
    Jason

    2021-03-02 at 2:17 pm #39037
    samuraijkm
    Customer

    Hi Yuri,

    Thank you for helping me sort through this…

    It still isn’t quite right. See the images attached. The file I sent you has the wire attached at a knob on the side of the piston. The one you sent back it’s floating in the middle of the piston.

    I thought that there might be a way to keep it aligned, but when I tried to replicate what you did, mine was in a different spot.

    Can you explain what keyframe you added frame 0 in more detail? Was it the armature of the base robot arm, was it for all the bones or just the main bone ? I’ve tried both and it still looks the same. I feel like I’m so close to figuring it out but nothing seems to be working. :unsure:

    Sincerely,
    Jason

    Attachments:
    You must be logged in to view attached files.
    2021-03-02 at 2:35 pm #39040
    Mikhail Luzyanin
    Staff

    You need to bake the wire animation somehow to simple keys so animation would work without constrains and additional objects. I’ve tried to bake it with Blender baker but seems it works not perfect.

    Co-founder and lead graphics specialist at Soft8Soft.

    2021-03-02 at 3:01 pm #39043
    samuraijkm
    Customer

    So if the wire is baked somehow, what part of the main animation has a key at frame 0 ? every part of the robot arm or just the main bone ?

    2021-03-02 at 3:06 pm #39044
    Mikhail Luzyanin
    Staff

    Any object or bone that has animation.

    Co-founder and lead graphics specialist at Soft8Soft.

    2021-03-02 at 5:00 pm #39055
    samuraijkm
    Customer

    Ok, so I was finally able to produce some positive results. It is kind of a workaround.

    I basically set everything’s posed position to be the rest pose and applied the armature on the mesh. Once everything was in the rested state at frame 0, I deleted the spline IK and the curve. Added regular IK to the end of the chain by adding a target bone. Then added child of constraints to lock the chain to the base of the robot arm. I then baked all the armatures to action keys clearing all constraints and then finally added a child of constraint to the first bone to lock it back to the base. Now I have to repeat this for all my wires on the mesh.

    Seems convoluted for sure, especially because if I have to change the animation I’m screwed and have to start over. :wacko:

    Guess I will have to have a prebaked and baked file to allow for alterations. Anyway, I am attaching the file for you or anyone to see if you are curious.

    Also, I found this video on the web which helped a lot. Here it is for reference – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OC5zo6EpKDnA5EdgUv02uKFBGZm4gidS/view

    2021-03-02 at 7:25 pm #39061
    Mikhail Luzyanin
    Staff

    Yes, I usually do the same: keep two or more files with different stage of rigging and animation. :good:

    Co-founder and lead graphics specialist at Soft8Soft.

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