Mesh parented to an armature disappears

[a-k-m]

Hello,

To simulate the lines of a kite in my game I am trying to use a mesh with an armature.
It works pretty well… for 2 seconds or so, then the mesh disappears. I created a demo for it and in the demo everything works fine, no problems. I even appended the objects from the demo to use in my game, but the mesh keeps disappearing.

Here some screenshots for illustration:

In the first screenshot you see the line (the extra fat one) right after the game starts

Here, some seconds afterwards the line just disappears.

Enclosed please find the demo in which everything works just fine.

Do you have any idea why it keeps disappearing?

Attachments

bands.blend (529 KB)

[a-k-m]

Thanks Monster, at least now I know where the problem is coming from.
Unfortunately, there’s seems to be no real solution for it yet.

Any ideas how I could simulate the lines another way? the other lines you see in the pic are just parented meshes, but the result isn’t too accurate.

If I use ray-lines at faster speed the lines multiply (as in my old version of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKuV6vUX6gc)

The mesh deforming with an armature seemed to be a very accurate solution, but it has the problem of object culling

[Monster]

Armature Deformation
To increase the size of the bounding box you can start the scene with the largest deformation you expect within the game. This bounding box will remain even when you play smaller deformations.

You can get the same result by adding isolated (invisible) vertices to your deformed mesh with the only purpose to increase the dimensions of the mesh.

Thin lines
To get thin lines I usually use a mesh with wireframe material. This way only the edges are rendered, but never be too small or too wide.

I’m not sure if your really need/want that.

Scaling lines
When your lines are straight you could use one mesh object (per line) and dynamically scale it either via Action (property mode) or Python. Object-Animation do not have that bounding box limitation as the bounding box gets dynamically updated (in difference to armature animations).

[a-k-m]

Thanks Monster, like so often you really helped me out! I adopted the wire-frame material with the invisible vertices and it works like a charm!