Creating animated chain ?

Support Basics & Interface
#1

Hi,

I have been pondering what would be wiset way of creating a chain which is animated. I do have a castle gate which is connected to two chains, and those two chains are connected to two chain wheels which are scrolling the chain in when the gate is closing and out when gate is opening. I have noticed that using armatures would be pretty easy way to control the chain, but creating the animation where the chain first goes through two holes on the castle front wall to the wheels (here the chain makes the first angle) and then starting to rotate the chain over the wheel (where the chain makes a spiral), is nasty job. I am not sure if the armatures could be handled with path or so ?

One possibility could be python, but I shall think that later on. Any suggestions ?

Thank you very much,
-Mika

#2

Well… fancy seeing you here. Welcome Mika.

Have you seen Stefano’s “Rope Works”:

https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39693

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#3

Hi!

You could use the Curve Deform feature :

Look at my Winch tutorial and the winch demo movie on my website (BLENDER section in the menu)…

Philippe.

#4

Hi,

Thank you very much for answers. The Cure Deform really is nifty feature, didn’t know it’s excistency :slight_smile:

The Python script isn’t working correctly with current cvs version of blender. I think it is something to do with that mystic DAG feature ( which I do not know exactly ). But the python script is so great looking that I am really looking forward for update for 2.40 by S68 (the gear script is excellent !!!)

Thanks once more,
-Mika