I’m trying to create a chain link on a curve, but for some reason nothing is happening when I specify the curve I want to use. What am I doing wrong? I was able to get this the first time following the same steps.
Before
After
After
You currently have curve turned off in the viewport. What happens when you click that TV looking button next to the camera?
It’ll turn blue when it’s on.
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Oh! I feel silly! But when I do turn on the modifier for the viewport, it looks like it still doesn’t follow the curve.
Huh. That’s strange. I tried it on a cube just now, and it looks like your modifiers are in the right order. If you want to link the file I’ll take a look at it.
It could be an issue with the placement of your object and its origin, relative to the curve and its origin. That’s messed me up a few times when I’ve done similar.
What I did here was switch the curve deform axis to -Y
Then I moved both the curve and the chain link that’s not a direct part of the curve to the same place as the empty.
If you don’t put the curve at the same place as the empty you get gaps and overlap in your chain. If the chain link’s not at the same place, the chain itself displays away from the curve.
chain_problem (1).blend (931.2 KB)
That definitely helps! But I tried to change the axis and have the empty where the curve starts in this example too and it still wasn’t lining up.
chain_problem2.blend (923.4 KB)
The way you have the original set up, you have to move the curve and the link to the empty, not the other way around. If the empty moves from where it is, it throws the whole thing off.
In the case of your second file, I don’t know what’s going on. Even when I move everything to where it worked in the last version, and turn off the curve modifier, I get this.
That’s the chain with the curve turned off, which should look like a straight chain.
I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, what you’re planning on using this chain for. Can you take your original file, before whatever went wrong in this one went wrong, and apply what’s working in the one I sent you?
Hey, thanks for your reply! For context, I’m doing a Halloween render with some chains wrapping around some bones. For this situation I just tried the simplest solution and went through the steps from the start with a more simple curve.
But I wish I could grasp the idea of curves more. I always find it confusing what the deform axis does, and why each origin for each object has to be in a specific place.
I don’t really know why curve deform acts like it does either, just what I usually have to click to make it work.
It looks like you got it though. 
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