Focus 4 - Springs & Spline Dynamics in Cinema 4D Tutorial Part 01: Hanging Objects On a String Video Lecture | Create stunning 3D Graphics with Cinema 4D - 3D & Animation

every when it cj4 my design calm and
today we're going to have a little bit
of fun with spline dynamics and Springs
but the combination of those two things
I achieve this kind of look and this
kind of effect where you have objects
dangling off of strings basically my
string I made out of a string of pyramid
objects so let's just dive right in and
I'll show you how to get that kind of
look so we're going to have this is the
object that I'm going to have dangling
one of my texts edge effects bevel bevel
edge fonts so we have our object already
in set to go turn that off for now
and first we're going to need to have
our spring that we're going to actually
need to dangle that text off of so how I
found to make a good straight line is by
using a helix and just turning down the
radiuses and bring down the subdivision
to say 10 we can make this height a
little bit higher to 600 and we're going
to make that editable and you can see
that we have a string with or a spline
with 10 subdivisions now
all right so now we need to rename this
string and now we need to apply dynamics
to it because we need to get it moving
around and first I'm going to actually
put this in a null because I just found
it easier to you get grab control of the
snowle and move the spline the string
around as a whole as a indigo if you
want to animate it later so just
something I do in my workflow so let's
add some dynamics to this and we're
going to go to hair tags and choose one
dynamics so right away we just have a
spline that drops that's the same exact
thing that would happen if you applied a
dynamics tag to any object it just Falls
so what we need to tell it is what what
is this string and I connect to we're
going to we're going to see that in the
spline dynamics tag you have an option
to fix your point kind of like with the
cloth tag and we're going to do the same
exact thing so we want this to hang from
the very top point we're going to hit
set and right away it doesn't drop
anymore in fact if you now choose this
no and move the null around you're
getting some dynamic action going on but
it's it's looking really jagged and
wiggly and not exactly what we want and
how we fix that is by changing the type
of spline points we have and if I found
if you use a b-spline if we move this
around now it's looking pretty it's
looking nice it's looking exactly like
you would expect it to move and look
like if you actually had a real piece of
string that you're messing around with
so that's looking
the way we want it to look so far we can
actually now throw a sweetener bond this
with a with a circle profile so we can
visually see our strengths let's bring
down the circle to Sigma 5 so now you
can actually let's throw texture on this
so now we can actually see it so now
again if we move the null around now you
have a good visual reference of of your
string all right so now we need to bring
back our object and that we need to
dangle off of the string we're going to
try to usually match up and connect the
two all right so now we need to tell
this Evette it needs to dangle off of
this and how we do that is first we need
to add a dynamics tag to the letter and
that's good and it's just dropping
exactly like how the string was dropping
when we didn't tell it what it was
connected to or anything so now is where
our spring comes in under dynamics bring
the spring and you're confronted with
these options of a object a and an
object B so basically what object is
going to be connected to the one end
what objects can be connected the other
end in this case we have our the top of
the object which is the top of the
spring and the bottom object that's
going to be dangling off of the bottom
of the spring so already we know we need
to stick the the B object in here and
we're actually going to attach it
with an offset and right away you can
see that you have this actually bump
this up you have a visual reference it
doesn't render out you have a visual
reference of what this spring is going
to look like and you can see that we
actually need to bring this up the
opposite to actually make it look like
it's working the way we wanted to now we
have to connect our string to the the e
so how we're actually going to do that
is go to your constraint tag and it's
the same thing where you set a point
this time you actually set it to an
object and that object is going to be
that E and we need to select the not the
top this time but the bottom point of
the string and connect it to that e so
we get set and we have play again girl
kind of craziness going on you still
have one more thing to do we still need
to set that a object which is that
string but we don't want the center of
mass again we actually we can do offset
again or we can actually choose a point
selection and the point selection that
we're going to want is the very top
point so if we go set selection so we
have that top point selected we're going
to use that point as the top of the
spring so we're going to throw that
point selection in there go and hit play
again still acting all wonky so
obviously we need to still mess around
with some settings first thing we're
going to mess with is the rest length
and what the rest length is is how
how long is this length of the spring
going to be so you can see as I bumped
it down the spring is going much lower
so now we can really start just tweaking
these options in this offset to kind of
see it's kind of rotating weirdly off
that to kind of visually line it up to
where we think where would that center
of the letter is so you see that it's
kind of lining up in the middle there to
go back so it's it's rotating a whole
lot and we don't want that so what we're
going to need to do is go into our force
of the dynamic tag of the letter and
bring the angular dampening down so it's
kind of slowing down a little bit you
can see our string is connected but it's
our spring that is just not set up right
yet so sometimes you need to give it a
little bit more slack or maybe it's
actually too much slack because it's
over
over springing
so we still need to bring this down a
bit so rest at the bottom and so the
string is fully straightened out so we
just this rest length a little bit more
and see that it's kind of dangling not
at the very center top of the center of
that EE so you still have to kind of
play around with the offset here so it
rests evenly there so now we're getting
pretty close to
making this look like it's you know
believable that this is hanging off
there but of course we don't just want
it to just kind of sit and hang there we
want it to fall so to do that we just
bring up the letter here and since
everything is connected including you
know with the spring and these you know
the splines are looking at what the
spring is looking at these splines and
everything else so once we move that up
now it falls down so that that's looking
pretty close to what I initially showed
and the nice thing is is that say if you
wanted to come in from an angle you want
to kind of swing back and forth just
move the letter over there and initiate
the dynamics and there you go
another thing to keep in mind is by
adjusting the rotation and everything
the dampening on the dynamics of the
letter or whatever object you have
dangling from it helps to kind of tame
or increase the rotation so if you want
a whole ton of rotation you'll leave
that at zero but it's you know if you
want to just kind of dampen that you can
also use follow rotation to really
smooth smooth out that angle you can
also use rotation to kind of slow it
down that looks kind of weird maybe you
don't want that kind of
going on you can also do the same with
the string so if you don't want it going
all crazy like that initially you can
Jack the rubber up or down if you do it
way down it's just like looking real
real rubbery
you can also the stiffness you adjust
the drag so the drag kind of is like a
dampener for the string as well so if
you see that without that drag it's
going all crazy this kind of brings that
in a little bit so it kind of smooths
everything out so let's actually bring
this back over here because we want our
text to just fall let's hit play so we
actually you have to watch when you
place this if you have it directly in
the center that's when it's going to
start tumbling over itself so you kind
of want to have it offset a little bit
like in front or behind
you kind of have to mess around and kind
of see what what position what starting
position works best so right there I
mean that's looking pretty close to what
I got to before this nice smooth but not
a lot of crazy rotation going on you can
add a little bit of Bounce if you want
to turn the dampening down so it bounces
a little bit more
okay so we've got our ego in pretty good
we can actually ease up a little on the
linear dampening and the angular
dampening
we are is not landing front front words
I wanted to since just rotate that a
little alright now we got it facing the
right direction of so like I had here
I had these pyramids and I also had
another letter interacting with the the
other so we're halfway there so say you
want uh like chains or you want like a
chain effect or like I have here I just
put some some pyramids basically what
you can do is you can actually clone
along this so it's not just a string
it's you know like a like a dog tag kind
of you can have some ball some spheres
to make a dog that kind of thing so I
can let's make that really quick so
basically all you have to do is go get
your cloner drag the sphere in the
cloner set the clock the mode to object
and just throw the string in there and
the cloner will clone along that spline
so if I bring this down you can kind of
see what I was talking about if I turn
off that sweepnurbs and change the count
to even bring that count up
you kind of get this bold chain kind of
effect thing going on we see that it's
not exactly resting its resting at an
angle so we still need to adjust the
offset a little tiny bit
there we go so that's looking pretty
good so now we have one letter of we
just need to make the other letter now
to have it interact dynamically with and
it's pretty simple just need to bring
all these put them into a null I'm going
to call it the e and so that's all still
intact and good to go and we're just
going to duplicate that put a J and all
we need to do is just kind of reconnect
everything so let's turn this guy off
and just do e to because we just have
another e to
just rename everything sweets just have
everything organized okay
so let's turn this off as well so
basically we just need to clear out our
constraint and our spline and we just
need to make sure that everything is
connected right again
and make sure that's e to set that again
and for our spring
we've got string - that's good point
selection because this is actually still
referencing that one so the point
selection so make sure that's point
selection - it's E - good let's make
sure this corner is string - that's good
there we go and actually it's already
interacting with the other e
so if we stop this bring this e over a
bit bring it right next to it play
actually bring so we get a little bit of
swing swinging to the letter I'll just
bring this over here bring this e over
this way so you get before I have it
swinging both ways so there you go got
two letter swinging off these kind of
ball chain dealies and looking pretty
dang close to what I showed initially so
there's a there's a ton of different
things you can do with this further and
I'll actually be showing that in my next
tutorial how to kind of reverse this to
kind of get like a balloon kind of
coming up and not falling down using the
same kind of technique so I'll see you
in the next part of this tutorial
talk to you later bye