Rolling a Tube

[Noise]

Hi

 

I am trying to roll a tube along the ground with an accurate representation of how many times the tube will rotate. I have tried calculating it but the animation paths are becoming more complex and now include rolling up walls as-well so I need something that will react to the movement of the tube itself.

 

Massfx would seem to be the best option for what I want but the contact between the tube and the ground is very thin and I think this is messing up the simulation because it isn't work.

 

Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can do this ?

 

Many thanks

 

N

[Corey Beaulieu]

Have you tried an expression in the wire parameters? Tether the rotation value to the distance traveled. 2(pi)R is the circumference of the tube and dist would be the difference between the start and end point. 2(pi) is also the rotation value for 360 degrees in radians.

 

so (circumference/distance)*(2(pi)) would be the amount of rotation necessary to have the tube appear as if it were rolling along the ground.

 

additionally if you have the length of the line you can divide it by the circumference of the tube and then multiply by 2(pi) with is one rotation.

 

length/circumference = the number of rotations needed to get to the end of the line.

2(pi) is the radian value of a rotation.

 

(length/circumference)*(2(pi)) = tube rolling correctly.

[Tommy L]

I just responded, but it disappeared, so you may get two posts here...

Get a car rig / simulator. Just make one wheel follow a spline and it will do the rotations for you. Then you can parent your tube to the wheel. It will do dynamics if you ask it to also...

There's a few on scriptspot. If you have some money to spend get MadCar.