Twisting Pipe

[Syclone1]

A little off topic but Im hoping that someone has achieved something similar. I cant upload an image from my office so Ill explain the best I can.

Im trying to animate a oil well drilling simulation and have to show the drill pipe twisting back and forth. The problem is I have to show the first third of the pipe twisting, the middle third of the pipe stationary and the last third of the pipe twisting. Ive tried adjusting the gizmo limits but I need a large length of the pipe stationary and tried stacking a couple twist modifiers but have had horrific results...

According to the "engineer" this is what is happening and I have to some how get this pipe to twist on either end and not in the middle.

Kinda like below


__________________________________________________
|<-----twisting-----><-----stationary-----><-----twisting----->|
|_________________________________________________ _|


Thanks,

-dave

[percydaman]

try meshselect modifier then use softselection to select the outer pipe parts then throw on the twist modifier?

[Dynedain]

work with an editable spline object instead of a cylinder and animate the vertices?

[instinct]

The twist modifier also has a limitation group. You could just slap two twist modifiers on a cylinder and limit one to the one end and the other to the other end...advantage would be that you could animate the borders between stationary and twisted if needed.

Thorsten

[Syclone1]

Tkx for the input guys, Im trying all of them. My other problem that I didnt mention is that the amount of pipe thats twisting needs to be animated also, Ill try to show the start and finish below.

Start of the ani:

<--twist--><---------------still--------------><--twist-->

End of the ani:

<----------twist------------><---still---><-----twist----->

So the amount of twisting on the pipe has to be animated also.

Im actually thinking of using animated maps to achieve this or even render 3 pipes and combine in post, as most of my attempts at animating the geometry have failed.

Any other ideas in the mean time are greatly appreciated.

-dave

[tom182]

3 individual cylinders with animated slice??? animate the vertices with soft selection (as I imagine max twist is at each end)

Tom

[DaForce]

Well, exactly as instinct said. Use 2 twist modifiers and animated their borders/affect area.