Hi
I am considering about implementing a string simulator in blender. Here is the thread on blender.org.
Would people like it? Swinging electrical cables, dungeon chains, whips and ammunition belts are just some of the possibilities.
I am not promising that this will ever come to fruitition but if I feel there is enough interest, I will have a good go at it.
Koba
I don’t know how often it’d be needed. But it’d be a great feature to have 
I’m all for it!
Yeah! That would be…
amazing… :o
Edit: It would be REALLY nice, if you could make it for the game engine, or make it with the ability to be parented to, so you could make cloths and such.
I’m definitely interested in it. It’ll definitely be a great addition to blender.
Hehe, like Lemmy I think it would be great if this could be implemented for the game engine as well.
Jason Lin
It would be useful. I needed something like that when I animated the flex on a Pixar style lamp and I had to do it manually. The way I set up the string was to use a curve and extrude a circle along it. That way, you only have to move the points on the line in order to bend the string instead of deforming a cylinder. This also ensures that the cylinder remains intact despite the bending i.e. no pinching.
The problem was that the control points on the line in a real string would stay the same distance apart and this was what I did wrong because I didn’t use an armature - I just tweaked each of the points individually.
As for making an automated way of producing strings, Blender really just needs to be able to attach armatures to curves. Then you extrude along the curve to make the string and animate the armature with whatever physics is required. You could do a cloth engine the same way so long as the cloth or string didn’t stretch but most don’t anyway - they usually just fold.
Yes, that would be great! I have always wanted to do something like that.
What a great idea of a feature to add to blender, it would add many animation possibilities and probably easier for ropes in static scenes as well
It’s pretty easy to do static ropes.
Maybe a straight rope but it is a little tougher to get it to drape across and down objects in a natrual way
Yeah, I guess you’re right.
Oooooohh I’d like to use that 
I hope you do decide to do this
Hello
I’ve been making some progress. Check out this thread and you are more than welcome to download the script and give me some feedback!
Please give me improvement suggestions etc. I would like to know if you would like to see this coded into Blender.
Remember that the script is only a prototype.
Koba
I dont feel like logging in to post over at dotOrg so ill just say it here:
Your doing a DAMN good job! When this thing is finished its going to be one of the most used things in my toolbox. Right now im working on a scene with is VERY ‘rope like things’ heavy. This addition to the blender ‘arsenal’ is going to amazing!
:o Wow, you’ve made some pretty good progress on this script. Keep up the great work, this will definitely be a great feature to add onto Blender. That rope movement was pretty awesome.
*Note: Your testing variables still show up on the command window. Hehe, might want to take that off.
Jason Lin
It’s really cool, is there a website for all this?
OOOhhh… i know nothing of scripts… yet… but will learn soon as i find a place that teaches it >.<
BUT… ive already run int omoddeling "trouble? when it came to string like things… like the tongue of my lizard… i wanted to have the forks wrap around a gem… but getting it to bend reallistically and mold the mesh to the contours of the sphere was just being too time consuming for my immediate tastes… and killed my ideas i had for his tail.
I went to the “ideas for blender 2.35” thread and spoke about such a thing involving a form of toggleable “colision” detection script that could be used in animation and even base editing so people can get things like rope… arms… fingers… tongues… tentacles… or anything that is overly flexible that people “want” to do but just dont want to spend gods knows how long moving individual verts to thier perfect spots… for one image.
and like said above… with a group association of sorts they could work togeather to create nets and cloths MUCH easier as they would react naturally to other objects.
Is there interest for the posibilites of your script… you have no idea!
DragonFyre:
First learn standalone python (http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html) and get at least the basics of it down. It’s much easier than trying to learn it from within blender because you can use the interactive interpretor (ie you enter a command and it runs it, then you enter another command and it runs it…)
Then you can look at the documentation for the Blender module (http://www.blender.org/modules/documentation/233PythonDoc/) and/or the game modules (http://www.blender.org/modules/documentation/gamelogic.pdf) and start writing blender scripts!
Koba: :o
yes YES YES!
What a wonderful tool! I have needed for a long time.
ill look into it if my computer dont fry first… might have to wipe the HD its been acting odd these past 24 hours.
as for python… im not looking to write scripts… but everyone talks about using the ones already written so thats my main intent.
Thanks everyone for the positive response.
I haven’t had any response recently on blender.org though. Maybe its cause there are fewer people over there.
I’m still working on it. I hope that very soon I’ll have a new script with the constraints system in place.
As for coding it in C++: this may take a few months seeing how busy I’ll be getting ready for life at Oxford as a Fresher.
Koba