Chain array / spacing

Tom Ellis

Hey there,

I'm trying to model a bike chain and get it to duplicate along a path. I'm sure this is one of those situations where there's 101 ways to do it but I don't know any!

I've tried the spacing tool but it's not working... if I pick follow, the rotation is all off and doesn't seem to rotate at the pivot which I've set to the part of the chain that should be the ref point for each piece.

I know there's a way to do it with snapshot too but I can't figure it out!

I also tried a script called TrainMaker but it's not doing anything in Max2010.

Any suggestions?!

Thanks

Tom Ellis

Ah this is much harder than I thought since the chain sections have two pivot points... hmmm now I'm totally stuck!

Mark Dygert

Paul Hormis has a good method of setting up chains for dynamic simulation, you might be able to adapt parts of it to what you're doing?

http://www.hyperent.com/Hyp-Tutorial-Cloth-003.php

Tom Ellis

Thanks Vig, nice link.

It's an absolute bitch to do though as I said, there are two pivot points for each section which makes it tricky.

I ended up just placing them by hand which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I'm just thinking ahead though, what would be a good way of building a low poly chain?

I'm aiming for kinda current-gen specs but I'm still thinking an alpha / diffuse might be the best way to do it. I was thinking two loops of polys facing outwards for the sides of the chain and then another loop with polys running perpendicular to those with the image of the chain from the top?

Ben Apuna

creationtwentytwo, did you ever pick up Modo?

You could use the Constrain to Path and Duplicate script there's even a video tutorial on how to use it to make a bicycle chain.

After that you could bake it down to a low poly model and animate the UVs/textures in engine.

Tom Ellis

Many thanks for the reply Ben, that script looks perfect. Unfortunately I never got into Modo. It's still something I intend to do when I get a chance, regretting not doing it sooner now!

The video has given me the better idea though to model the chain as two separate parts rather than both the inner and outer links combined.

If I can get a path duplicate working on one then hopefully I can do the same on the other and shuffle it round the path a bit using the same spacing, similar to how he does it in the video.

I figured out the baking too after running a quick test. Building a simple box around the chain and baking normals/AO in Max gives a decent result and bakes in a perfect alpha too so it's ready to go.

Thanks again.

Ben Apuna

Cool, I'm glad you've got a workable solution.

I'm sure the path duplicate method can be applied to other apps as well such as Max and Maya.

Tom Ellis

Ok turns out TrainMaker is exactly what I needed and practically the same as the Modo script you linked Ben.

The problem was that I was attempting it with a single chain piece rather than two which was a stupid idea to begin with!

All sorted then and actually pretty simple!

Thanks again for the help!