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Zaru
09-10-2008, 03:16 PM
Hello.
I am currently working on the last part of my model. It's a fishing pole with a flag attached to its end. All of it is a part of a vehicle which will be driving through the desert. As it is known, the fishing pole is quite flexible so when vehicle will roam around with full speed the pole should frequently bend itself. I've decided to make the flag an nCloth surface to have better control over it than I would have over particle solution. The pole is a simple polygonal cylinder linked to a bend deformer. I am animating curvature to simulate the bending effect.

And here is where problem starts.

When I constraint (transform) my nCloth flag to pole's edges, and move the pole around, it's okay. But when I key the pole's curvature attribute, flag is still bound to the former position of pole's edges/vertices despite of their translation due to non-linear bend deformer.

Does anyone know what could cause such a thing? Maybe I should mess with pole's hierarchy order?
trgTyson
09-10-2008, 04:19 PM
just did a long reply but it didnt post!


Anyways, did a quick test here with a bend deformer on a pole and a flag constrained no issues.


Not sure if it was a typo on your end or not, but you should use a component to component constraint from the edge of your flag to the pole. Also, change the connection update on the constraint to "Per Frame" instead of "At Start"

Cheers, let me know how this pans out for you.

-Tyson
tpalamar
09-10-2008, 06:10 PM
Could be a couple of things, first what type of constraint did you use to attach the flag to the pole? You will want to use a component to component constraint.
Zaru
09-12-2008, 12:12 PM
Hello Tyson, Hello Todd!
Thank you guys for your response. It was not a typo, I actually have used a transform constraint to bind the flag to its flagpole. I chose it because I made such constraint in my other scene to bind nCloth telegraph wires to telegraph poles and it worked. It appears though that such type of constraint does not work when binding the nCloth object to geometry that has a deformer applied and the deformer attributes are keyed. You suggested the use of Component to Component constraint at it did the job very well. Thanks!

PS. Tyson, could you please explain me what are the advantages of using Constraint's Connection Update Per Frame rather than At Start? Why should I set it to Per Frame in my case? I tried both settings and I couldn't really tell the difference between them when I animated my fishing(flag)pole.
trgTyson
09-12-2008, 03:35 PM
no Prob Zaru,

For the technical details on "Update Per Frame" I don't have anymore information other then what will be found in the help file. Was told by a co-worker to use it after I had an issue with one of my constraints once, I dont always change it but I figured it would be worth a shot.

Glad to be of help/Good luck!

Cheers!
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09-12-2008, 03:35 PM
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