I’m still learning Blender and want to try out a simple project for a presentation I have to give. I want to make a very short looping animation of a hypnotists watch swinging to and fro. I have already had a go and come up with a satisfactory result by modelling the chain, parenting the watch to the chain and then manually rotating the whole thing through 45 degrees in a looped animation.
How would you do it? I know that there are armatures and physics but am not sure how to pull it together. It would be a better animation I guess than what I did because the chain could deform ever so slightly as it swings, and using gravity the swinging motion would be more believable.
Any thoughts greatly welcomed.
u could have an armature, then like subdivide it, and is IK solvers to get it to work, then loop the IPO of the IK bone. that would be the simplest in my eyes
Unless my physics is very rusty, the speed of the pendulum varies according to a sine wave (simple harmonic motion). I think (although I haven’t tested it!) the Rot IPO curve needs to approximate a sinewave. That way, the pendulum decelerates at the ends of its swing, and is going at maximum speed at the centre of travel. If you want the pendulum to travel at scale speed, you need to use the formula:
t = 2*pi * sqrt (L/g)
where:
t = time period of swing, L= length of the chain, g = 9.81.
In your case, I suspect that the chain is light compared with the mass of the watch, which means the curvature of the chain (the ‘flick’) at the ends of travel will be hardly noticeable. The mass of the watch has much more significance and will tend to keep the chain straightened. If the chain were very heavy compared with the weight of the watch, then the chain’s centre of gravity has more significance and the curvature will be noticeable at the ends of travel.
The curvature will develop all the way from the centre of travel (when deceleration begins), becoming a maximum at the ends of travel. So I’d think for an armature you’d need only to set one pose completely straight at the vertical position, and one more pose at each end of the travel with a gentle outwards curvature.