daddycoull

Such a great idea modelling it flat then spline wrapping it into a cylinder shape afterwards.

oh wow even better! I dont feel so bad still using r16 then haha.

That's a nice looking rig! What version of c4d was this done in?

My set-up for my chain, is bascially an object in a cloner, following a spline, then using xpresso to drive it.

For anyone interested, this was the set-up with the tracer object. Very handy for doing cables, rope and other bendy things. cable movement update c4d cafe.c4d

I would be interested in other ways to create what I was trying to achieve?

nvm tracer object using nulls did the trick. Sorry for the wasted post.

Hi, I've attached and example of what I'm trying to achieve. The red object moves along the x axis and has a cable attached to it, then other end of the cable is attached to a stationary object which is blue. I've tried using spline dynamics, but the results are not exactly what I'm looking for. Any ideas how i could better refine this? I kinda need it to move in one motion as I've set up a control for the movement of the red piece so that will be driving the dynamics. I had thought of using a bunch of nulls in a tracer object but that would require hand animating the movement each time. Thanks cable movement c4d cafe.c4d

I fixed it, in the Cloner change the distribution from Step to Even.

Think i've fixed it in the cloner, change the Distribution from Step to Even. \o/

Tried the rail, doesn't help. hmm

It could be, but to me it looks hand animated.

Hi there, I've created this chain animation for a forklift using a cloner. The problem is one side of the chain jumps about in a wrong looking way. Any idea how to fix this? I tried this method using something a little lower in poly and there didn't seem to be this problem. Thanks, DC Chain animation c4dcafe.c4d

Did a quick mock up and it doesn't seem to be jittering / shaking for this set up. Weird wonder why its happening with my other file? c4d chains.c4d

no wait i lied it does the same. Dam.

I managed to do this without issue for the other chain on the VNA (see other thread to video the animation), but for some reason it isn't playing ball with these chains.

Hi there, I'm animating the splines that control my chains, on their own they move fine when you select the curve of the spline and move it up and down. The problem occurs when I combine both splines and try and move both curves up and down, one side jitters while the other side is fine. Kinda annoying is it fixable or do I have to animate them independently? Thanks again. VNA Chians for C4dcafe.c4d

For anyone that's interested the rigged chain. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ljp19y7qshecu8l/Video 13-11-2019%2C 14 18 06.mov?dl=0 (link is safe). My chain was created with an object, a spline and a cloner. I then made the spline dynamic. Using rectangular splines I created the points to attach the spline to. Red were points that didn't move and the green one was the driving force behind the animation. I created user data for the green rectangle moving on the y axis and the turret object (which had the forks too) to also move up and down on the y axis. Using xpresso I created the animation controls. I then animated their sliders together, which gives you the finished movement in the video. If there is a simpler way to do this I'm all ears.

I'll post a video of it once I'm done!

I just tried what I written in my reply and it works, ace now to rig this thing, with me luck!

Ahhhh, ok now that I see how it works. Now need to figure out how to make the chain animation. would I animated the spline bend on the y axis as the piston pushes the fork upwards? hope I make sense with what I've written haha.

I kinda used this same method when modelling Cubones skull. This is amazing! It actually looks like a great white even before texturing, you've nailed the shape perfectly.

yeah totally understand that. The general movement I understand, but what's got me stumped is how to animate the chains. Like I know how to 'animate' a chain, but I can't think of how to animate it in the way it's shown in the video. It looks like the chain expands along the y axis when the fork turret moves up and down and the whole unit moves up and down. I'll update my OP as that's my main road block.

If I remember correctly you can create your shape you want them to form and then hide it from camera/render, but can put a dynamic tag on it so the balls fall into it. https://greyscalegorilla.com/tutorials/how-to-use-dynamics-particle-emitters-and-different-camera-angles-in-cinema-4d/ This tutorial might help in some way, was one of the first ones I tried out 4.5 years ago when I took up cinema 4d.

That's a good looking Santa!