Focus 5 - Springs & Spline Dynamics in Cinema 4D Tutorial Part 2: Floating Balloons Video Lecture | Create stunning 3D Graphics with Cinema 4D - 3D & Animation

hey guys DJ from my design comm and I'm
here with part two of my Springs and
spline dynamics tutorials and this one
is going to be about balloons and how
you can get an upwards dynamic motion as
opposed to a dropping objects hanging
off of a string and dangling effect that
I showed in part one so I have my
balloon object I have my string object
which is just a sweep nerve with a
spline in a little circle set to a low
radius and I got my materials applied so
it's all good to go so far so first
we're going to start up basically the
same way as we did with the part one of
the tutorial where first we got to add
some dynamics this to these objects so
we're going to add spline dynamics to
the string the string spline and we're
going to go and select this actually
we're going to select this bottom this
is where we're going to have kind of
like a little boy's holding the balloon
or whatever it's going to be holding it
from the bottom of the string where this
balloon is going to then react and you
revolve around this kind of center of
axis of gravity or whatever you would
call it so we're going to go and we're
going to make that the fix point so
we're going to hit set and that'll set
that another big thing is since we're
we're wanting upward motion because this
is filled with helium usually so we want
if we just left the gravity and dynamics
as it
is everything is going to drop and
actually how you get to these project
settings is hitting command D and
that'll get you to all these settings
here so what we're going to do is we're
going to change this to a negative
number I'm just going to go negative 500
and we'll see how that works everything
else is good so all right we got our
spline dynamics on there we need to add
dynamics to our balloon as well so let's
go and add a simulation the rigid body
tag there and then we need our string as
well or spring sorry Springs and strings
so as as I showed in the first first
part you need to define two objects we
know what's springing off what the ones
going to be holding the bottom of the
spring and the other one's going to be
spring off the top of the spring and we
need our balloon to be object day and
our string we want to actually bring in
the string spline string into object B
and we want the balloon we don't want it
to be the center of mass we want it to
be offset and it's going to be offset at
the very bottom here so the like if the
string was tied here the balloon is
going to be your bouncing back and forth
basically rotating off of this axis and
the string we want it to go off of the
point selection
and a polygon point I'm sorry
and basically what polygon point does is
you can choose the index and you can see
if it's at zero this top point of the
spline is zero and when you see that I
move it up it's going from like this has
maybe seven or eight points so when I go
up in the index number it's going to the
next point in that index so I think if
we get two I think there's eight points
so if we get to the very earth point
index that is referencing this very
bottom so let's actually see what we got
so far so that's not what we want
because it's just bouncing back down
what we need to do is jack up the rest
length see how it's kind of hanging out
right there if we spring this to 425
it's a little bit better can actually
offset
make sure that this extension is meeting
up with the exact bottom of the balloon
okay we can actually bring down the
stiffness of the spring because we don't
want it to be so so stiff right there so
let's found if we actually go to a very
low value like point zero five we get a
nice slight springiness going on we
don't want it too much because a helium
balloon usually doesn't go up very fast
so that's looking good so far the one
last dynamic thing we have to connect is
the top of the the string here to the
balloon so right now if we move our
balloon and hit play it just kind of
goes off doing its own thing and we need
the top of the string to move along with
the balloon so one thing we got to do is
go and add a constraint tag excuse me
and make sure we have the top of the
string spline connect selected and make
sure that when you make your balloon the
access Center is down where the string
would actually tie to the balloon which
is important so let's bring the balloon
as the object we want to set that point
to and hit set so now we go and we're
just blown out here and hit play the top
of the spline will now match up with the
bottom of the balloon so that's looking
good so far
but if you actually don't want to
manually go and animate your blend what
you can do is add some um there we go
some turbulence or even some wind to
make things interesting
so let's make sure our fan has turned
the right direction that it is yeah so
now you have this wind going you have
some turbulence we bring that up and
bring that so now you have it it's a
little bit too crazy you see it's kind
of freaking out it's turbulence the wind
as well
so let's looking looking okay I would
like it the balloon to start a little
further down so we have more of the
string movement so how you can do that
is change the rest length and bring that
to 350 and now we have a little bit
bring the dampening up a lot of this is
just playing around with these these
settings here and seeing what looks best
so maybe want to bring the rest length
back the stiffness is good add more
turbulence so like seeing that the
movement of the string can actually go
in and play with the spline dynamic
settings and if we bring down the rubber
option and maybe bring a drag up and
bring the stiffness to do to see how
that works
bring out our timeline here so you can
get a little bit longer dynamic
simulation going let's behave in pretty
good remember there's this is like it's
a balloon connected to like wrapped
around up a pole or something like that
Flitz looking pretty believable I'd
still like to get a little bit more
movement actually if we bring down our
rotational mass and what this does is
actually makes it a mix the balloon more
likely to change its rotation off of it
this a mass Center and when we bring
that down we can actually change where
the center of where the masses so
usually you know it's a little bit
top-heavy because everything's all the
helium is you know want to go up so we
probably want to move the center up
maybe 150 we can actually see what the
units are so go to the top it's about
230
so it changes the
about 200 I want to go to the very
tip-top kind of morning be in that range
maybe even 190 let's play this again so
now you can see it's a little bit more
we've got a little bit more rotation
with the actual balloon which is nice
actually don't like how much grabby
there is going up so let's actually go
hit command-d and let's go back to our
general and let's make that a negative
100 instead so we've got a little bit
more got a lot of a lot of jerkiness
going let's bring down the wind because
since we lowered the gravity we don't
need as much wind or turbulence to make
things move let's go back to our spring
and let's bring this dampening up maybe
that'll stop that actually let's bring
the wrist length up I think that's
what's causing that weirdness right
there
okay there we go
that was just me when you get the rest
length off with the actual length of the
spline that's going to make things a
little bit weird as you saw
so maybe that's a good one
add more wing back
I get too much too much so it's just the
really win all together that's just
bring turbulence back alright so we got
our turbulence move
and scale down basically we just want
some decent enough movement or it
doesn't look so boring just staying
static like that
all right so that's looking pretty
pretty good now um now let's actually
bring a few more into the scene and like
I did before the way to set this up so
you can duplicate it is just making a
null making sure the null is precious
positioned to the bottom of the string
because it's what we're going to like
offset the rotation of more of these
balloons and strings so it's nameless
all right and let's duplicate that and
we can move that out of the way this out
of the way and you up to actually edit
and move the rotation make sure you're
on frame 0 because if you're not on
frame 0 that's when the dynamics start
to kick in and it will actually lock
block it so you can't change the
attributes of the objects you're working
with so all right now we hit play and
you got the balloons bouncing off each
other look pretty nice so I mean that
that works
this option is good if you just need to
have some balloons connected to another
object that's a kind of stationary
there's another option I'm going to show
that works a little bit better if you
want to actually animate happy in the
balloons just kind of float up so okay
so this is good if you just want to
connect it to one point but uh with the
spring you're kind of limited to the
spring movement and stuff so if I
actually move this stuff along see
because it's a spring it wants to kind
of compress
and it doesn't come back in it's kind of
stiff and no matter how how much you
change the spring stiffness and all that
stuff that doesn't really change just
because of the nature of that object so
the next this next way to get some
dynamic balloons is still with the
dynamics and string dynamic spline
dynamics sorry just get all set back up
again so yeah you you let's get a string
back actually all right let's just
delete all these guys and delete that
delete string spring
let's bring all that out all right now
we're good to go again okay
so you you still want to add your
dynamics to the balloon you still want
to have your splendor dynamics for the
for the string the only thing you need
to do is fix the look instead of before
I always fix the bottom point that's
fine so will and dandy when you want to
connect it to something that's that the
string is tied onto but this we just
want it to kind of float freely into the
air so we just need to make sure that
this this top point is just connected to
the balloon so let's go and set that
point and actually if we make this whole
object a child of the balloon what it's
going to do is use the dynamics of this
balloon object it's going to bring
everything else up it's going to bring
the string up and since we set the point
to where it would be tied to the balloon
if we hit play just going to go straight
up and it looks pretty boring as is so
all we need to do is just like the other
scene where the balloon was attached at
the bottom there just going to bring
some turbulence into here
let's bring 2:35 say and now you can
start seeing it interact the turbulence
is going to interact with that spline as
it goes up
and if we bring some scale in there
you're going to start to see the balloon
move and also move the string along with
it so let's look a little bit more
believable of how balloon would actually
go up into the air so pretty happy with
how that looks so far now what we can do
is bring in a couple other balloons for
them to kind of interact with each other
so it's going to drag them the whole
entire thing into a null and bring the
axis center down there the null so I can
kind of when i duplicate i can offset
the rotation like so bring this over
here a little bit
and again someone and bring it over here
and hit play someone's going to lose
their balloons actually sometimes that
happens it out if that ever happens
worth right away when you hit play the
splines kind of go crazy
hit back a few times and that should
straighten out the dynamics there so
something you got a bunch of balloons
going a bunch of different directions
and that's that one more let's see if we
can get a couple to bounce off each
other okay again we go back alright I
got a little bouncing and they're going
on you can see that some of these are
rotating at a weird way you know
balloons don't do that so what we need
to do go into these uh tags here and
jack up the rotational mass so they
don't rotate as much as they bounce so
now they're going a much more believable
way up into the air and never tie an
engagement ring to a balloon if you've
heard that story that was a bad idea guy
lost his engagement ring I don't know if
the girl dumped him after that probably
shut up that was dumb alright so there
is a your dynamic balloons
render that out so yeah there was tooth
there's two ways the one where it
connects with the spring and this one's
a little bit more free-floating let me
know if you have any other ways I know
there's probably a bunch of different
ways you can get this balloon effect
going but I'd love to hear the comments
and your feedback so post them below and
I'll see you in part 3 of the springs
and spline dynamics tutorial
extravaganza thanks for watching bye