FXWars! Catapult! (Trebuchet) : Derby-Q Salano

#41

Keying of the release is allowed.

I wouldn’t get too excited yet Howard, we have a long way to go to match this one.

#42

Hate to break your party Howard, that’s exactly how I released the ball… breaking a constraint…

#43

In Lightwave you don’t need to set a keyframe for this, you can set a collision event so that when the ball crosses, it is automatically cut. Is this possible in Maya as well?

#44

The way I ran it in my test was an expression:

if(trebArm.rotateX<85){
nailConstraint.active = 1;
}
else {
nailConstraint.active = 0;
}

This is melscript but it can be translated to any other program with an expression language. This gaurantees that it is still dynamic by telling it to release the ball at a certain angle. You would have control over the angle to experiment for your optimal release, simulating a bent hook.

Something a bit more indepth but necessary to insure the constraint doesn’t become active again if the arm dips below your set angle would be:

-create attribute on your ball/shot called isReleased

if(frame=1){
shot1.isReleased = 0;
}
else{}

if(trebArm.rotateX<85 && shot1.isReleased != 1){
nailConstraint.active = 1;
}
else {
shot1.isReleased = 1;
nailConstraint.active = 0;
}

#45

That’s not a dynamic trigger either… so I think we’re in the same ballpark… I can just release my key if the arm is rotated 45 degrees with the ground, sure, but in the end the result is the same…

Btw Coryc: there’s nothing Maya can’t do :slight_smile:

And there are collision events indeed…

#46

And here I thought it was you that was doing this.:smiley:

#47

Keyframing the constraint one way or another sounds good to me anyhow. Maybe it’d be fun to do a “physically correct” pouch just as a test though, without the whole arm swinging… just to see that it can be done. Hm I’ll go check that out, what else are weekends for :).

Regarding your dynamic “pretty” wires derbyqsalano. Are they all rigidbody pinconstrained wires?
Anyway if the pretty wires doesn’t influence the main simulation, I’d think it possible for you to turn the cache off selectivly for the relevant objects, and let them resolve without having to simulate everything again? I totally understand what you’re getting at with the whole “it works now, I’m not ****ing with it anymore”, and that’s probably the best route to take so you don’t get stuck tweaking small stuff. If you do get the urge to fix it at some point though the cache (wether rigid- or softbody based) should be toggleable. Rigidbodies in particular have that cache-switcher node thing going so you can make several caches and mix between them as you see fit.

#48

I did a complete pouch ones, but the key is still a constraint that brakes…

The wires are about 50% dynamic curve and 50% rigid constrained cube chains… basically, if the wire needs to carry something, for example the pulley, it’s rigid… I didnt get the dynamic curves to carry a pulley yet…

The simulation is about 10 fps, so resimulating it isn’t so terrible, I just have to learn to work more with solvers and caches, cause I got plenty of problems on that matter

#49

That’s absolutely amazing! As a newbie trying to follow this challenge, I’d love to see a tutorial on a few things here… The modelling wasn’t too hard, but dynamics can really be a bitch! :slight_smile: A tutorial from you on ropes and trebuchet-dynamics would be very much appreciated, as I haven’t been able to find any tuts that helped me much. They’re all about particle effects and stuff like that, not simulations.

Right now I’m stuck on the part where the projectile leaves the trebuchet :slight_smile: Tricky stuff, tricky stuff!

Again, amazing work!

#50

Can I toot my own horn? It’s probably in poor taste…
I just… echo.no, if you’re using Maya you can download a simple Trebuchet scene from my thread. Maybe you can dissect it to learn some stuff. If I’m not much mistaken it uses the same basic setup as derbyqsalano, minus the goodlooking part :).

derbyqsalano, apologies if this is out of line?, I don’t mean to step on your toes here.

#51

Thanks alot Gaggle, I’ll take a look at it as soon as my girlfriend gets off my workstation. I never should have allowed her to start playing Neverwinter Nights… sigh

:slight_smile:

#52

That is amazingly complex. With the real ropes and the motion blur, you are going to have a killer render :twisted:

And go NWN!

#53

Echo: I will try to perhaps do some basic tuts on beginning animation, I don’t know if I’ll find much time though… we’ll see…

  Thanks for the comments guys.

Gaggle: I shall hunt you down! :wink:

And on the matter of the thread, I decided there should be some life in my offensive part of the scene, I got a treb that’s being build and one that’s being loaded, in total I will go with 3 trebs, two of which are static, the other dynamic. I will have a number of workers, arming, loading, transporting stones and parts, and a number of soldiers, not an army, like 10 each or so… presuming the army is further ahead :slight_smile:

Here’s the base model of the worker, I got multiple textures of the clothes and will shape some variants of the mesh.

I hope this is allowed in the challenge.

#54

Here’s an update: Variations in the weight of the person.

http://www.ronin3D.net/CGI_Files/Trebuchet/Worker_Weight.mov

#55

I can’t wait to see this scene finished! :thumbsup:

#56

Thanks :slight_smile:

Here’s a quick demo of some random generated workers… Don’t play the animation, just drag through it, I didn’t want to post 21 images, so here’s 1 mov file.

The length of the guys will finaly be modified using skeletons.

http://www.ronin3d.net/CGI_Files/Trebuchet/Worker_Random.mov

 [img]http://www.ronin3d.net/CGI_Files/Trebuchet/Worker_Random.mov[/img]
#57

Sweet Jesus you’re really taking this all the way.
Color me impressed.

#58

I wrote my Worker Generator, it creates a worker with random proportions and facial features (which I can still alter afterwards), random clothing and face textures, depending of what kind of worker, I’m going with three kinds, as an excuse for the many colors in clothing…

#59

Pretty darned impressive man. You say you are working on this for your reel? Surprising you don’t already have a job!

I had thought I might like to include something like what you’re doing with the workers but I don’t know if I have time to implement it. I’m really glad to see you’re taking this to the max because it’s motivating to try to keep up.

#60

Thanks for the kind words, I currently am teaching at the only school where they teach Maya in my country, it’s parttime and I need a job in production, I haven’t found a company here that works with Maya. And for the moment I can’t move to another country… I’m planning on starting a school though…