-
Baloon on a rope: Puppet Tool?
Hi everybody,
I’m working on a sequence, where a balloon is tied to a rope, floating around. One end of the rope is fixed to the ground, the other to the balloon. I used Dan Ebberts’ basic random motion expressions (thanks, Dan!) for the hovering of the balloon. Then I added two Puppet Tool Pins to each end of the rope, pickwhipped it to the balloon’s position, and it works perfectly. Almost. Because, the rope now looks more like stiff wire than a flexi lace. Does anybody have an idea how to simulate gravity? That means, if the balloon flies high, the rope should be stretched, and if it’s low, it should be bent smoothly. Maybe the puppet tool is the wrong thing to use? Or should I add a middle Pin, that’s somehow related to the balloon one?
Thanks in advance,
Katherine
(I’m pretty new to expressions, but am amazed about their possibilities)
-
5 Replies
-
i would start using the “beam” effect instead of the puppet tool, youll get much more accurate “anchors”, they stick right where you want it to follow. then might play around with some distortions on the beam…maybe a cc bend that increases as balloon moves positive in the Y…def a lot of playing around involved id imagine though.
-
Thanks, Eric. The Beam effects works perfectly on this. You’re right, the bending seems a bit tricky, but my first attempts are not too far away from what I’m looking for. The bending disconnects the anchor, though. Well, I keep on figuring out an appropriate solution and post it in case of success. Thanks again for your help.
-
ya i thought that might happen, maybe after you get the Bend how you want it, do a “value+” the pickwhiped position you want and just move it back into the place it should be
-
Hm, I somehow don’t get it back in place. The rope just cuts off wherever I position the anchor point. Behaves strange. But I keep on trying. Thanks for your ideas though, I think it gets us pretty near what I’d like.
I was just thinking about another possibly possible way 🙂 When I draw a Bézier path, is there a way to address a single anchor point of the path for clinging it to one fix position? Maybe over Vector Maths (dot bla or something)? I only get the whole path attached to the balloon. ‘Cause if this was possible, I could bend the middle section of the path by hand or expressions, reagarding the current position of the balloon.
Man, this seems such an easy thing to do, but…
-
Whoo, I got it, so far 🙂 Not perfect yet, but OK. The CC Bender with a bending style “Marilyn” does the trick on the “Beam” rope. This one keeps the anchor points in position.
And for the expression, see below. I applied it to the bender’s amount. It’s for a 1920×1080 Comp, where the balloon uses a random motion (by Dan Ebberts) within a minimum of 25% and a maximum of 75% of the whole Comp. The expression reads ot the current balloon’s position. If it is on the left half of the Comp, the rope will be bent to the left, and the other way round. The second part reads out the Y position, so if the balon goes up, the rope straightens, if it’s low, it bends with a maximum amount of 35. I have to clean it up with variables.
If anybody has an idea how to make it better/correct, please tell me, I appreciate your help.Thanks, and best wishes.
(((thisComp.layer("balloon").position[0])-0.75*thisComp.width/2)/(720/35))*((thisComp.layer("balloon").position[1]-(0.75*thisComp.height-0.25*thisComp.height))/486);
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up