Animate a chain

[shashanks18]

okk, my situation is, i want to animate a chain, hanging frm both the ends on a door, and as the door smashes open, the chain shakes due to impact OR the chain is hanging with a bell, and it waves as the bell tolls....sumthin lyk happenin in tis Warcraft 3 cinematic:

YouTube - Warcraft 3 Human Ending

i wanna make sumthin wid chains like tis......can ne1 suggest me wat do i do???? hw do i combine reactors wid normal animation????

thx

[3DPete]

well, it's quite a difficult. I will try to search wor the tutorial, i surely saw something with chains. Otherwise i can't realy help, becouse i am not so great with reactor...

[shashanks18]

hey thx fr that.....if ye get a tutorial, plz post it here....thx again :)

[wexomania]

well i think it is hard to make it look good but may i suggest using splines and path deform? I don't know if it is possible to make the chains not deformable, but it is is a start.
I hope you find better solutions than this because it is a bit weird working with.
anyway god luck

[wexomania]

After testing in max i found that if u use splineIK solver you can make the chains not deformable and you can attach things at the end that follows the chains animation.

[shashanks18]

hey thx buddy.....cn ye tell me hw do i apply the Spline IK on the chain???

[wexomania]

first of all you need a chain that is built up by many pieces... then you need to link one to each other, then apply the splineIK solver to one of the edge chains and then click on the other end. after that you need a spline to be applied the best is if the spline and the chain has the same length. the spline needs to be built up by several points to make it work properly.

[shashanks18]

hey man, jus to tell ye dat i tried doin it n it has workd out nicely

also, i saw tis video on youtube: YouTube - 3ds max chain

tis guy used Reactors to make it....i hv sent him a message on youtube to kindly share wid me the technique....IF n wen he replies me back, will surely let ye ppl knw....

@3DPete, hey buddy, if ye still find a tutorial fr it, plz share

thx again

[Isdrasil]

I've found a way to create a chain with reactor too. makes it all a bit more "alive". I shall try to make a quick tut for ya!

[Isdrasil]

Oke, I'll try to put a video of the result on youtube, but first the tutorial for reactor.

-Make a chain the way you want it to look. Don't let the objects intersect with eachother, better to have some space between them.
-Creaty gravity force.
-Select all the objects and the gravity that will interact with eachother, so also the static objects like a box which the chain will collide with. Make it a rigid body collection.
-go to the reactor rollout. It's best to use havok 3 for rigid bodies. havok 1 is more suitable for cloth, etc.
- for the chain will be moving, select those objects that you want to make interactive and give them under properties a mass. doesn't really make any difference here how much it will be. I used 0,1.
-the other objects in the scene have a mass of 0 so they won't move.
-If you want, you can take the topmost chain and with auto keying give it a contolled movement or rotation so the rest of the chain will follow it. If you do so you have to make that object "unyielding", also found on the properties rollout. this way it will move, but doesnt take changes by the simulation.
-go back to first frame and press preview simulation. If you like the result you can start make it real!

Am I clear in the explanations? If you have questions, just ask!

[shashanks18]

okk buddy...m jus tryin to do wat ye hv written....will jus cm up wid a result, whether i ws able to do it or nt...

[shashanks18]

oh man!!! EUREKA!!!

Thanx ALOT Idrasil!!! actually the only thing i ws missin ws to check Unyieldind ON, n ye explaind dat, dat its necessary to do so if it has to b animatd!!!

Thanx alot fr taking tym n clearin my doubt man!

[Isdrasil]

one thing i forgot (dunno if ya know it or not) for the chain set simulation geometry to concave mesh instead of mesh convex hull. Mesh convex hull works like a bounding box, so it won't act like it has a hole in it. concave mesh takes the mesh shape.

[shashanks18]

i figured dat out while tryin it, but dnt knw the exact reason fr nt workin....thx fr dat too :D

[Isdrasil]

here is the link to youtube.
YouTube - reactor chain test

I know it looks awfull, but it's just for the idea of it...