Joseph Giuffrida

I'm looking to make something similar to this where there is a floating soft body/cloth sim that is attached to a flying object, and then is released and lands on a collider object. But i'm at amiss of where to start when it comes to controlling the object after it's released. I'm thinking the best way to connect this is with a spring, but when it comes to releasing it and controlling the landing and then peeling it back off - is someone able to break down how you'd go about it? Or point me in the direction of what I should be searching for to find a tutorial?

I've got a cloner generating 5 lights in object mode along a spline and I've animated their offset value from 0 to 1000% over 1275 frames. I need to be able to convert these to individual lights in order to bring this into after effects and use these lights as emitters. I can convert the cloner to individual objects but they lose their offset value. Is there a way I can convert them and still have them retain their offset values in order for me to bring them into after effects as lights with animated position keyframes?