SimCloth question

#1

Hello All:

Is it possible to link a model to SimCloth that will react to the simulated waves?
This is similar to what I need to do, but this is only an example as a simple explanation:
Picture water with very light ripples, and an object floating atop the waves reacting to the direction of the waves.

I have tried this and either it doesn’t follow the undulations, or when it is set to simulate, it looks as though it will take till doomsday to calculate one frame (the estimate is 00:00:00)
the “object” is a rigged character also…

any suggestions would be appreciated

By the way, this is a very cool plug-in and very timely for this project!

thanx

#2

Hi.
This plug in is great but i have some questions:
The calculation time depends in any way of the amount of polygons of the deflector?
The amount of RAM has something to do with the calculations? (the sample projects stop calculations around frame 20)
Thanks for any advise

FelixCat

#3

I’m not sure what you mean Kevmo…

Have you tried parenting the object you want to ‘bob’ to the wave object. If inherit deformations is turned on, it should work like you describe (I think…).

Felix, polygon count has a lot to do with calculation times :slight_smile:
Use proxy objects as much as you can (low poly uber shapes for example).

Let me know if you need further help,
Ian

#4

Hello:

I saw that, but I was afraid it would distort the model…
I’ll give it a try.

thanx for the reply

#5

nope…

Doesn’t do anything actually.

I 've done some keyframing (which I deleted for the inherit deformation test), to match the movement, but it needs alot more work to be convincing.

thanx
k!

#6

too bad there isn’t a way of baking the simulation, like rOdeo…

#7

Could you post a preview movie?

I’ll try to do you an example tonight as I have what I think you are trying to do working on a movie I’m doing in my spare time.

Best,
Ian

#8

Here is a link to an early test, it’s low quality, but should be enuff to get what I’m after.

http://www.kmdesign.com/inferno/Liz-web-moth_3.wmv

thanx again

#9

This is just a series of wave deformers on a plane. (these were done as a quick example for a water simulation (storm) challenge here on the forum last year) Is this the effect you are looking for? Is there a reason you want to use simcloth rather than just deformers?

stationary
http://idisk.mac.com/holderness/Public/Concept/BallPreviewH264.mov

and moving
http://idisk.mac.com/holderness/Public/Concept/WaveDeform2obj.mov

The object(s) are linked (children) and set to follow the displacement rotation and offset of the deformed (parent) surface (the moving object example is a little more complicated but essentially the same) I should have the projects on a backup, if you are interested in them.

And to answer your original question; no I don’t think you can just link the object to a simcloth object and follow deformation (because there is no standard “deformation” of the object it is actually being recomputed and moved rather than deformed) You might be able to write an XP script to place an object at a specific point (vertex) in the surface at each frame though.

My 2¢…

#10

Hello W:
nice animations, Yes that is the idea.
The reason for using SimCloth is it “reacts” very well to the moth in the animation.
I was hopeing the moth could follow the movements of the simulation without having to keyframe etc.
I used the water analogy as a simple explanation of the project.

#11

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