Cineversity

Hello,
I have this animation of a series of letters connected by chains. I want everything to be dynamic, so that the letters are pulled along, fall over, all while the chain is moving, etc.
I think I have it working without the chain breaking, but I have to have the Bullet Steps Per Frame settings pretty high and I had to really reduce the Mass of all of the dynamic objects.
So, I am wondering, is this the most efficient way? I eventually want to have 2-3x as many letters and chains.
Please let me know if you have advice. Thank you.

here is the project file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OaDMsiRB6odkVIRLQiZ9xa0vnKlOJ8lo/view?usp=sharing

-Karl

Hi Karl,

I’m unaware of a “shortcut” to get the same effect. Like animating a cloth instead, and use that as a “canvas” to pin your letters to it. It will look fake or will cost a lot of time.

Two things that I would try to do:

Use a low polygon model for a single chain element. The 90º “tube” areas have a lot of polygons also, and the letters could have a proxy (Collision Shape> Another object.

My suggestion would be to have only two points per letter that can connect on each side, mid and low, while the start and end point is always at the same distance.
This needs four chain setups to connect those (low2mid, mid to low, mid-mid, low-low). All of these elements go under a single cloner.
With a Weight tag and Plain Effector set to Modify clones, while the Cloner is set to sort, you can mix the new chain relatively quickly.

Find the proper solver steps and cache.

Here is a quick setup with some elements of the brainstorming above. The Capsules inside are placeholders for letters.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vh20sziyou8euz1/CV3_S26_drs_22_BUmg_01.c4d.zip?dl=0

Another Object
https://help.maxon.net/c4d/s26/en-us/Default.htm#html/DYNRIGIDBODYTAG-RIGID_BODY_GROUP_COLLISION.html#RIGID_BODY_SHAPE

All the best

Thanks Dr. Sassi.
I’m afraid i don’t understand this part:
“My suggestion would be to have only two points per letter that can connect on each side, mid and low, while the start and end point is always at the same distance.
This needs four chain setups to connect those (low2mid, mid to low, mid-mid, low-low). All of these elements go under a single cloner.”
Is it easy to clarify?

—Karl

Hello again Dr. Sassi,
So, I thought about it and I think I understand.
You mean that each letter has a uniform set of points of contact, so that there is not a variety from letter to letter, right?
And start and end point, do you mean the distance between each letter?
And with this “This needs four chain setups to connect those (low2mid, mid to low, mid-mid, low-low). All of these elements go under a single cloner.” you don’t mean that each letter has 4 chains, but rather there are 4 possible ways that the chains could go, correct?
I think I have that understood.
Then what I don’t understand is the use of the Weight tag. I’ll keep looking and thinking, but if you have any tips, I appreciate it, as always.
-Karl

Hi Karl,

Sorry to be not clear, but let me try again:

Your letters have the left and right sides, often in the middle. But for example, the B, C, and K have lower right side contacts. To have all cases covered, I thought to have these four points prepared, just in case you also need a left side lower, as a 3 or J would require.
Please have a look at the graphic.

When you use a Weight tag, you can place that into your Plain Effector, Modify Clones as the only setting, that will influence (based on how much weight is stored, which child will be a clone.
Example
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kr01q37prcbi0z/CV3_S26_drs_22_MGws_01.c4d.zip?dl=0

Cheers