#Morphing Seatbelts
10 messages in this thread
To All:
I am trying to show how a person came out of their seatbelts during a
crash. My solution was to make a different seatbelt every 2 or 3 frames in
the lofter, then use morphing to make the seatbelts follow the person
during the crash. I set the continuity to zero, but when I render the
animation the seatbelts are cutting into the person and thus are not in the
correct position. I went back and rendered the frame with just the correct
seatbelt displayed, it looks ok then. I'm lost as to what I could do now.
Any suggestions???
Regards………Rick
Rick,
How about creating a dummy object and linking the human AND seat belt
as child objects of the dummy.( Do any linking/unlinking at frame 0 or
things might fly away.) In this way, the human and belt will follow the
dummy but still be able to move independently when required, for example
when the person slips out of the seatbelt (probably because it was too
slack) and flies gracefully through the windscreen! Voila!
One problem I haven't really solved yet is how to get things to morph
in the position I want them to – I always end up having to put keys in
almost every frame to keep them in the spot I want.
Martin
Martin:
Keeping the belts and human together is not a problem, I just linked them
to the car. My problem is making the belts stretch and move around such
that the person slips out of them.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said "One problem I haven't
really solved yet is how to get things to morph in the position I want them
to – I always end up having to put keys in almost every frame to keep them
in the spot I want." I made enough belts so that I would have only two or
three frames between them. The belts still would end up cutting thru the
person, telling me that the morphing was not in time with the belts that I
made for those keyframes.
Btw, how do you get anything done when you answer almost every question?<g>
I guess you have two computers, two hands and two minds working independent
of each other, is that it?<gg>
Regards……..Rick
Rick,
two computers – yes, two hands – yes, two minds – not exactly! <g>
Actually, I'm working on lots of projects simultaneously, some even have
deadlines – most don't. However, I really enjoy the ASOFT forum and find it
a welcome diversion – especially when something's rendering on my 486. My
CIS machine is just a 286 so I can't render anything on it and it's always
free.
I'm determined to get to the bottom of this morphing dilemma, and I
don't give up easily!<g> One of the Yost Group had some insight on this
problem a while back, I'm going to try digging up the message from my
hard-disk. Failing that I'm going to experiment. Maybe the solution is to
mess with the axis/or pivot point and have the axis at the place that you
don't want to move – I'm just hypothesizing. Let's experiment and see what
we can come up with, shall we? Keep in touch.
Martin
You may have to move the objects in the Keyframer once you set the morph.
Making morphing objects in the lofter retains the same construction plane
for each new object, so even if you move your object in the lofter, when
you make it, it will be in the same spot as the other one.
Aaron
Aaron:
The belts are morphing, but they are not moving far enough. Thats why I set
the continuity to zero in hopes that they would move farther. For example,
when I render the scene at frame 23 with only "belt05" displayed it looks
just fine. When I render it as a flic with just "belt01" displayed and
morphing to all the other belts, then the belts look like they are cutting
into and passing thru the person.
Thanks for your reply, any other suggestions?
Regards………Rick
Rick
It sounds like you should move the keyframes for the MORPH track of the
belts, independantly of everything else. It may be one of those grey areas
where the only answer is nudge & try…nudge & try. Lets face it if it was
all easy everybody would be doing it and where would that leave us !
– Grahame
To All Who Helped:
I finally saw what was happening after all the comments. The belts were
morphing in all directions around their local axis. This explains why the
belts were not morphing out around the driver as far as they needed to. I
used Yost-J suggestion to use Move/Element in the 3D Editor. How far do you
move them? – its strictly a guess. Another one of those trial and error
adjustments. To make the belts come out right they had to be moved in two
directions.
Thanks Jack for your excellent suggestion!!!!
Jack:
Is there a reason why the morphing could not be done such that each vetex
was independant? Anotherwords, have each vertex move relative to it's
previous position in the object it was morphing from. BTW, it would have
been alot easier to make the belts in the Lofter if it could have displayed
objects from the Keyframer at a particular frame, sounds like a wishlist
items.
Thanks everyone……….Rick
I suspect two things should be added to the wishlist: The ability to
generate a mesh object from any frame in the Keyframer, which would let you
create objects from morphed "betweens," and the ability to display
Keyframer viewports with the 3D Display in both the Lofter and the Shaper.
As for the independent vertex thingy, it's too complicated for me to even
figure out, and most users need time to figure out the morphing as it is
now!
– J
Jack and Gary,
Also, what about a relocatable local axis, then you
could choose more accurately from where the morph proceeded from.
Martin