How can I animate rope on a winch?

[javierseger]

I am trying to animate a rope pulling an object through a winch. I've tried using a cylinder with Path Deform following a helix, but the effect is not quite what I am looking for. Do you have any suggestion other than using massfx to try and simulate it?

[Nicolai Bongard]

Just use a spline with renderable thickness?

[javierseger]

I know that.

My question goes as to how to achieve the effect of the rope coiling and uncoiling when the winch works. Using Path Deform animation gives me a somewhat similar effect, but I was wondering how I could achieve a more believable result.

[Francisco Penaloza]

You can try using bones, that will give you lots of controls and reactions of Kinematics when the rope wrap around itself or other objects.

It is a little tedious attaching it to your rope mesh, skinning and all that, but the results are pretty good.

 

There may be a script or plugin that can do this by now, it been a long time since I did something similar.

[Hernan Rodenstein]

Here's what you need. Just make it with the rope instead of the carpet.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs7HWmRdMBg