Polymer Help... I am lost

Support Animation and Rigging
1

I am looking to animate the behaviour of a simple polymer chain (polyethylene).
Each monomer seems simple enough to model, but animating the entire chain is proving to be a little difficult. There are some great 3D images of this monomer and polymer chain on Wikipedia, but I can not seem to get one animated.

Does anyone have any ideas or examples that might help me out???

Thanks

2

let me check with Chemical Smurf to see if he has even a clue as to what you are talking about…
…
(small whiny voice “well you see PapaSmurf the nucleotides form a binding agent in the polymer molecule thus coagulating the monomers into a polymorphic gel, if you will, like your hair…hahahahah”)…
…
nope. He doesn’t have a clue. Do you mean you want them to…what. unfold, rotate, co-mingle, intertwine, exterminate, procreate, what? Please describe the animation using…hmmm…smurfy english. Simple terms. like spin, or rotate, or move to the left. Use short words; five letters is about all my brain can take.

3

Think of this a something of a chain or spaghetti. I would like to show four of five different lengths of chain, each with about 20-30 links, transform from being all intertwined, like cooked spaghetti, to an ordered state, like uncooked spaghetti. I have attached some images hopefully better explaining the idea I am trying to lay down.

Thanks

Attachments

Example #1.jpg960×720 37.1 KB

Example #2.jpg960×720 62.4 KB

4

You could add a Curve or Path and then add a Curve Modifier to the Polymer. You can then animate that Curve with RVK’s (Shape Keys).
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Curve_Modifier

He uses Mesh here but the nuts and bolts are the same for Curves:

http://membres.lycos.fr/bobois/Tuts/VertexKeys/rvk1.htm
http://membres.lycos.fr/bobois/Tuts/VertexKeys/rvk2.htm
http://membres.lycos.fr/bobois/Tuts/VertexKeys/rvk3_2.htm

Also here:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Shape_Keys
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Absolute_Shape_Keys

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5

Thanks for your reply, but when I tried using curve modifiers it ended up distorting the objects too much. I was thinking about trying this using an armature assembly, what do you think?

Thanks

6

Yes, you could use an armature.

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7

I think he should use DupliFrames http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/DupliFrames where a monomer is a link and the polymer is the chain. Just make a curve and have, like 100 frames for a 100 monomer polymer.

Then use shape keys to animate the chain moving and twisting and all that.

8

I like this idea of using DupliFrames, but I am having a hard time getting the object to animate with shape keys. After I move the path and create shape keys, I can not get the action editor to respect the movements. I have the sliders set and if I Alt-A the animation nothing happens.

Any ideas???

Thanks again

9

Shape keys can be a little tricky. Start with shaping the default cube first, using the tutorials and user manual. It’s important to leave edit mode to lock in the shape for that key. Then apply your knowledge to the control points of curves.