Curve deformer fixed at both ends

Is it possible (and if so how) to fix a rope (red) at the white circles at the end of each box and then let the boxes moving towards (or away from) each other. With a curve deformer I then would like to modify the rope while the ends of the rope should stick to the white circles. (see attachment)

Hi heinerL_70394,

in order to answer your question on how to select several deformer points, holding CTRL allows you to select several points one by one, one after the other.

stefman

Dear Mark,
thanks for your support! Now I can follow your suggestions!!
Heiner

Thanks - that helps!

Just create two separate curve deformers.

Begin each by dragging from the circles.

Thanks - but if I add two Curve deformers - starting at each circle and then drag them into the middle of the rope (I cannot drag them to the opposit circle - right?) - how do I exactly match the ends in the middle?

Howdy,
I put together a quick video showing a solution I came up with, well, maybe it isn’t a solution per se, maybe just a starting point.

Anyway, I just used the polyline tool to make a rope, then used an envelope deformer to match each point of that polyline shape/line. Then I attached the envelope deformer to the same peg as the first blue box. Then when you animate the boxes, you just animate the remaining 4 points of that envelope deformer.

Here is the video:

https://vimeo.com/178920846

If you have any questions or can’t understand what I did let me know.

Thanks for your video!! Do I understand it correctly, that Harmony does not allow me two select more than one Curve point of the Envelope deformer at the same time? So how did you manage to keep so nicely the end of the rope in the white circle (target) of box2 ? Unfortunately I did not get it.

You simply draw them to match.

Hey heinerL_70394,

Here is a follow up video that may explain things better:

https://vimeo.com/179051659

Hi heinerL,

Great responses from everybody!

In Harmony 14, you can now set up an enveloppe deformation just as shown by scungyho, and attach each box with a kinematic output node. When you attach the first kinematic output to your box, it will connect to the last point of your deformation hierarchy. For the first box, you need to create another kinematic sitting above it and connect it to the offset of your deformation manually.

Animating the offset and the last point will then keep the boxes attached to the deformation, and you will still be able to animate them individually with the pegs on each box.

Hoping this helps!

Kind regards :slight_smile:

Would it be possible to show me a screenshot of the node view ? I’m not sure whether I grasp your suggestion in detail. It would help me a lot :wink:
Thanks,
Heiner

Happy to oblige :slight_smile:

Here you go. In this version, you will have to manually connect the right rectangle to the offset. (dragging a new connection from the offset to the Multi-Port-Out and then connecting it to the rectangle right kinematic output node.)

https://fileshare.toonboom.com/wl/?id=2a6sJ0rAHeimGYYJBGRtLyGuaJWaIxtx

Thanks Genevieve,

I was trying last night to figure out your setup but was getting hung up trying to get the Multi-Port out to work. Now, when I move the offset point and the last point of the deformer for that rope it moves the boxes. The thing I don’t understand now is the pegs for those blue boxes, yes, I can use them to move the boxes but the rope comes undone from those white target points and I have to adjust them back to the target points. This would be normal, yes?

Heiner inspired me to try and figure out if this approach could be used to show a boxer skipping rope. Imagine the boxer crosses his forearms while skipping, the rope could be attached to either handle and animating the envelope deformer could be done to show that criss cross action of the rope. On the to do list, who knows if I will actually get around to doing it!

I love these particular topics on this forum. Heiner asks how to do something with two blue boxes and a red rope and look at how much we learn in the process.

Thanks Genevieve for the screenshot,Thanks scungyho for all your efforts in helping me, and also Thanks to all others,
I hope it will help me in animating what I planned. But first of all I need little more time…
Just as a side note: I’m a biologist (not artist) and the reason I’m asking how to do handle these two blue boxes and a red rope is that these blue boxes later should represent exons and the rope an intron which has to be removed during the course of RNA processing (maybe you remember from old school days that our genetic information is based on DNA and that this is transcribed into RNA… which has to be processed). Anyway, so this is real science :wink: I mention all this only, because scungyho was surprised “how much we learn in the process”.