How would you rig or animate an opening wired panel

MagicSugar

My actual panel is not this complicated. But setup is basically the same. Door has wires connected to the body and the required animation involves opening this door while maintaining all wire connections and door hinge points (i.e. door doesn't detach or disappear).

I'm thinking of boning the wires that will be moving with the door and only limiting the deformations at the hinge. The rest I'll set to rigid.

Got better strategy?

Another photo to illustrate: http://nomadness.com/blog/uploaded_images/dc-nav-panels-794068.jpg

Microneezia

you didnt state I think what software you are using, or what requirements you have. Ill assume you are using Max cause I use it, and zero requirements for budget other than finished animation.

Id use a series of the Extended Primitives > Hose

these are great for this function as you can set the cap and bottom to be anchored to certain points. so you could anchor one side on the door and the other side somewhere in the interior and simply animate the door.

... or there is this way as well...

that tutorial has been around for a while, its pretty good but i think its an old version of max, plus you would need to augment the instruction a bit to fit your needs. the hosse thing will work great tho...

uhm.. render a spline in viewport and animate the spline, this option is the hardest in your situation tho I think tho...

MagicSugar

Using maya. To be exported as .fbx into Unity engine.

Maya has spline ik. I'll try that out (and check out the tutorial link you've proivided). Thanks.

There will be plastic tie clips to hold bunches of thin wires. So I might start and terminate the rig(s) at those junctures.

Microneezia

hmm Unity looks pretty powerful, but even still thats a very finite requirement, as is using Maya... im gonna have to drop this as I know nothing about maya.

Unity looks really cool though, Ive seen a video of that 2 month game - Blush some guy inside Unity showing the level..., really cool looking editor. I wish it didnt take so much programing tho. It took 3 full time coders to release that single level in Blush, man seems like a lot. .. I talked to the guys who made it on their Flashbang internet office cam thing, pretty funny... If they had a Kismet-esque type of scripting GUI schematic Id totally use it. Course thats my failing really not Unity's.

Good luck!

Mark Dygert

1) Cleaner wire bundles.

2) Regular bones.

arrangemonk

i would consider ragdolls
ithe cameras in oortal also uses ragdolls and it works,

Stinger88

Blendshapes could be an option and it's simple.

You'd only need to animate 15-20 wires (which could be one object) to get enough movement for it to look good. And using 3 or 4 blend shapes would add variety enough for it to look different every time is opened. Just a thought.

Mark Dygert

Humm... I don't know how well (if at all) Unity would handle blend shapes. Most engines choke pretty easy on vertex animation.

I wouldn't model each wire, unless you're insane or its required. You could probably get away with wires painted on a few planes along with a few big bundles of wires. Then have the planes/bundles weighted to a main bone that sits still and a door/panel bone that moves. It doesn't look like the panel will need to move very far?

MagicSugar

Thanks for the suggestons guys.

Re: blend shapes, yup...we're using unity which means I'm stuck with bones or basic transforms for the animation (no danglys or lattice deforms or blend shapes).

Just got more info from our SME (subject matter expert) regarding this procedure I'm working on right now, so it looks like I could do the required actions without having the need for a complicated rig.

Stinger88

Oh...Missed the Unity part. Soz. I know nothing about Unity TBH

I think Vig's idea of two bones for the back and door sounds like a winner. Depends how much detail you want to get into the animation of the wires. This way will be great for just stretching the wires out but they won't swing or dangle really. Having said that Wires would be quite rigid anyway. Otherwise I'd use IK bones.

Good luck with that anyhoo

Mechadus

Id try to map all the wires onto small groups of planes bent into roughly the right shape, then either deform or bones it into the correct shape. Ive done similar things before, but never for a real time application. Hope it helps

-N