7ofDiamonds Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 Hi guys, I'm trying to create some chains, these are small scale chains, but there's lots of them (maybe 100s?). Here's a reference: Would like to constraint them to two main objects, (eg: the two rings at the ends in the example) and have them move and interact to these main objects. What's the best way to go about doing this? I would appreciate any tips or a workflow that could help me make this process efficient. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7ofDiamonds Posted November 7, 2015 Author Share Posted November 7, 2015 I've came up with something simple that seems to work for me. I've attached a hip file. The chain collisions seem to be working well, other than the weird jiggles that I'm getting. Also, another question regarding the building of the chain itself. I'm trying to alternate the rotation of the chains, but I'm not getting the desired result. I'm using if ($CY % 2 == 1, 90, 0) for the rotation but it's like doubling up and doing every two chains instead of every other. What I am I doing wrong? This network is marked red in the hip file under the chainlink geo`. I appreciate all the help, thank you! chain_test_v2.hipnc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fathom Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 last time i did chains, i used bullet. i generated proxy geometry using spheres (simple way from geo of link: vdbfrompoly node -> vdb to spheres node). if you have fast motion, you'll need to crank up the substeps potentially, but bullet is pretty fast so large numbers of substeps is not too bad. you're making your copy too complex. just rotate 90 every time with cumulative. or turn off cumulative if you want to use your expression. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7ofDiamonds Posted November 7, 2015 Author Share Posted November 7, 2015 last time i did chains, i used bullet. i generated proxy geometry using spheres (simple way from geo of link: vdbfrompoly node -> vdb to spheres node). if you have fast motion, you'll need to crank up the substeps potentially, but bullet is pretty fast so large numbers of substeps is not too bad. you're making your copy too complex. just rotate 90 every time with cumulative. or turn off cumulative if you want to use your expression. I forgot to mention that the second post with the example file was built with bullet and it seems to be working fine. I'll test out the proxy geometry with spheres. Thanks for the tip on the copy! Somehow that just flew by me, didn't think about the cumulative. Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7ofDiamonds Posted November 8, 2015 Author Share Posted November 8, 2015 (edited) last time i did chains, i used bullet. i generated proxy geometry using spheres (simple way from geo of link: vdbfrompoly node -> vdb to spheres node). if you have fast motion, you'll need to crank up the substeps potentially, but bullet is pretty fast so large numbers of substeps is not too bad. you're making your copy too complex. just rotate 90 every time with cumulative. or turn off cumulative if you want to use your expression. Have a couple of questions regarding the vdb to spheres method. Should the entire chain link be an RBD packed/fractured object? If so, where can I plug in this proxy geo? There doesn't seem to be a proxy geo input for the RBD packed/fractured object. Or should I be using something else? P/s - I'm trying the setup that I have in the file above, but somehow, if the chains are smaller, they seem to just randomly break at certain times.. **UPDATE** I've attached a hip file for what I have right now. Just a simple chain dropping onto the floor. Collisions seems to work for a while, but after frame 14, things just break, I have my global substep at 4, and the substep on the bullet solver itself at 300! I feel like I'm doing something wrong. chain_test_v3.hipnc Edited November 8, 2015 by 7ofDiamonds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fathom Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 yeah, packed rbd object. you use proxy geo directly (the sphere representation) and then when you dop import your sim, you feed your beauty geo to the dop import and just import the xform's for each named piece. you have to set up your names, tho. so set up a single link with proxy geo, then pack it and use a name attribute, then do your copy to make the chain links. that is then your geo for your sim. i'm trying to remember which bullet geometry type to use -- just run thru them and use the one that makes the bullet geo look retain the sphere shapes you set up. the docs should have a section on the whole proxy geo and dop import thing. if you have a any kind of instantaneous forces, you may need even higher subframes on the dop (20+ isn't crazy, so long as your sim times don't bog you down). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7ofDiamonds Posted November 8, 2015 Author Share Posted November 8, 2015 (edited) yeah, packed rbd object. you use proxy geo directly (the sphere representation) and then when you dop import your sim, you feed your beauty geo to the dop import and just import the xform's for each named piece. you have to set up your names, tho. so set up a single link with proxy geo, then pack it and use a name attribute, then do your copy to make the chain links. that is then your geo for your sim. i'm trying to remember which bullet geometry type to use -- just run thru them and use the one that makes the bullet geo look retain the sphere shapes you set up. the docs should have a section on the whole proxy geo and dop import thing. if you have a any kind of instantaneous forces, you may need even higher subframes on the dop (20+ isn't crazy, so long as your sim times don't bog you down). The concave bullet geo seems to be representing the spheres correctly. However, my sim times are through the roof, even with just 3 links, and even with a substep of 20+, they seem to be breaking, even worse than without the proxy geo :/ chain_test_v4.hipnc Edited November 8, 2015 by 7ofDiamonds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayman Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 (edited) There are several steps to optimise your scene. First uncheck Create Packed Prims on assemble SOP. Then promote names to points. Or just remove assemble and set the names using wrangle. Then go to DOPs and set geometry representation to Convex Hull. Check 'Create Covex Hull per set of connected polygons' and thats it you re back in business EDIT: even better : it also works with 'Create Packed Prims' turned on and without any change in SOPs, BUT you have to use Active object instead of Deforming active object. Cheers! chain_test_v5.hiplc Edited November 8, 2015 by rayman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7ofDiamonds Posted November 8, 2015 Author Share Posted November 8, 2015 There are several steps to optimise your scene. First uncheck Create Packed Prims on assemble SOP. Then promote names to points. Or just remove assemble and set the names using wrangle. Then go to DOPs and set geometry representation to Convex Hull. Check 'Create Covex Hull per set of connected polygons' and thats it you re back in business EDIT: even better : it also works with 'Create Packed Prims' turned on and without any change in SOPs, BUT you have to use Active object instead of Deforming active object. Cheers! Thank you so much Pavel! The collisions seem to be working very well this way! I tried using Create Packed Prims, but I seem to be losing the names from the groups (I created an output group in the copy sop). I also added a DOPimport with "Transform Input Geometry" on and plugged my beauty geo into the it. It doesn't error out, but it shows nothing in my viewport. I thought it was something to do with the Packed Prims since they lost their names, but even with the Create Packed Prims turned off (and naming in tact), it doesn't seem to be displaying anything at all. I really feel that it's caused by the Packed Prims but I cannot pin point it. I tried it with just a simple box as proxy geo, and a sphere as beauty geo, and it seems to be working fine as an RBD object, but not as a Packed object. chain_test_v6.hipnc 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayman Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 Its even better to set it up using transform pieces - that way you just need to cache output point cloud and use it to transform your hi-res pieces. chain_test_v7.hipnc 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7ofDiamonds Posted November 8, 2015 Author Share Posted November 8, 2015 Its even better to set it up using transform pieces - that way you just need to cache output point cloud and use it to transform your hi-res pieces. That seems to work pretty well. Thank you so much! Will post the final results here when it's done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7ofDiamonds Posted November 19, 2015 Author Share Posted November 19, 2015 (edited) Hey guys! As promised, here's the finished piece. Would love to go in and fix some things with the smoke and some artifacts, but this is it for now! https://youtu.be/r0SrUmXZMgA Would appreciate feedback! Also thanks to Pavel and Miles for helping a lot with the chains! Edited November 19, 2015 by 7ofDiamonds 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 that is a VERY good sim. nice job! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParticleSkull Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 Awesome! Can I share it around?It's setted as unlisted so I think it's better to ask first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7ofDiamonds Posted November 20, 2015 Author Share Posted November 20, 2015 that is a VERY good sim. nice job! Thank you very much Michael! I really appreciate it! Awesome! Can I share it around? It's setted as unlisted so I think it's better to ask first. Hey Alvaro! The reason it's unlisted is because it's not completely finished yet. I would probably take another week or two to go in and fix some issues with the smoke, lighting and stuff. Once that's done, I'll update this thread. But I don't mind if you wanted to share what I posted above Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParticleSkull Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Cool, i'll wait for the new version then. I'm following the this topic so there's no way of missing it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7ofDiamonds Posted November 28, 2015 Author Share Posted November 28, 2015 Reworked the smoke and did some compositing stuff in Nuke. Here's the final piece: https://youtu.be/r7OTQ-rk3i4 Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fathom Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 looks great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dyei nightmare Posted March 28, 2019 Share Posted March 28, 2019 (edited) i cant believe this topic. Edited March 28, 2019 by dyei nightmare 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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