Path Deform Animation

[Tim Nelson]

Hi all,

 

I'm having a heck of a time trying to figure this one out. I need to animate a bend of a particular object along a path, so I'm using a path deform. The problem is, as it goes around the tight radius, it's squishing the handle part of my object too much. I have no idea how to get around this.

 

I've tried using animated bend modifiers, which sort of works, but it requires way too much key frame animation and presents other problems that I'd like to avoid. This is literally only 1 second worth of a larger animation so it's very frustrating.

 

Any suggestions how to animate this object along the path without it squishing the handle? I tried detaching the handle and linking it to a vertex with the attachment constraint, but then it doesn't bend or conform at all, it just looks loosely attached with a lot of gaps in it.

 

The picture attached is how it normally should look on top, and then what starts to happen when it goes around the bend. Nevermind the bend modifier in the stack, I was trying to see if I could put it on top of the path deform but I can't.

[Scott Schroeder]

One way to do it would be to separate the handle and just use a path constraint rather than a deformation controller. Then just either do an animated loft or path deform for whatever the object is behind the handle. Then just sync the start and stop key frames and you should have a pretty good result.

 

The other options is to do it with multiple bend modifiers and use the limit controls. It would be very similar to the swinging light bulb example from Paul Neale.

 

 

Times like these I always have to remember some key words from one of Paul Neale's talks, "Drive the complex with something simple."

[Tim Nelson]

Times like these I always have to remember some key words from one of Paul Neale's talks, "Drive the complex with something simple."

Indeed! That's what I'm trying to keep in mind. Good idea with detaching and having it follow the path constraint. Trick is, the handle would need to deform at least a little to match the curve of the tube. What I'm looking into now is using a path deform modifier without the tight radius and using a bend modifier to do the tight turn.