I can roll a string UP on a wheel but have no idea how to to roll a string OFF a whee

Support Animation and Rigging
#1

The question might sound simple but it’s actually pretty difficult since there are many factors in my scenario.

I’m currently making a compound bow for a VR game, but I can’t find a proper way to roll up/off the string.

I uploaded a short video here to show you where the issue is: https://youtu.be/mYnHmFhpzjA
(Just mute the audio, I forgot to turn off a video in the background when I recorded this)
I basically want the string to smoothly roll off of the wheel when pulling the string back.

I’ve already posted this issue in other subreddits and didn’t find any solutions, I also contacted several youtubers that do blender stuff and had conversations with some of them but nobody could think of a way to properly roll off the string.

As a worst case measure, is there a way to do animations frame by frame by manually moving the vertices? It would take some time but it’d work at least.

#2

Please help I’ve been trying to figure this out for 3 days straight and no matter what I do I just can’t make it work, it’s beyond frustrating.

#3

Go to my website clockmender.uk and find the tutorial on Cord Systems - “Blender Tutorials” => “Cord Systems-1” - it’s all explained there for you along with a sample blend file on page 3. - Just ask if you don’t understand anything.

Cheers, Clock.

#4

I’m pretty sure that this wouldn’t work in my case since a) the wheel/cam is not round and b) the string doesn’t just get rolled off but also pulled away at the same time, therefore the rotation changes.

I will give it a try though and play around with it a little.

#5

The principle is in the tutorial, not necessarily the exact execution for you - look at the bit where I move the jib up and down, that principle will work for your bow.

Cheers, Clock.