Animate an inflatable evacuation slide- How to?

[tom182]

Hi, I am in a bit of a fix here trying to work out the best way to animate an evacuation slide deploying from a plane. at beginning of animation it must be small and compressed then inflates initially from the top/plane door downwards

was thinking a path deform to get the shape and then a number of morph targets?

haven't tried this before and would appreciate any ideas,

Thanks

[AJ Jefferies]

I haven't tried this approach, but something that could look quite nice would be to model the slide then run a cloth sim having it collapse flat onto the floor. Then run a cloth sim having it inflate (using pressure). You could then bake this animation (or pull a couple of morph targets from it) then use an animated path deform to animate it unfurling.

I'm not 100% sure if that's explained very clearly, if I get a chance I'll see if I can mock up a simple test later today.

[joconnell]

Think you can also have a volume select animating a vertex selection fed into your morpher for the gradual inflate too.

[tom182]

hmmm, was thinking of avoiding cloth/physics and go old school on it, A) have F' all cloth and physics experience and B) it has to open from a bag, I can get away with a bit of inaccuracy as the inflation will be very quick.
@AJ if you do get a chance to knock up something then I'd be very interested in seeing the method,

[AJ Jefferies]

Ok this is reaaally cheap and nasty and not exactly what I originally thought of. Basically, I've run a cloth sim to flatten the slide out then morphed back to the inflated state using a volume select exactly like John suggested. I've got it path deforming along a spline with a bend modifier, but it's pretty nasty. You'd probably be better off getting it to unfurl using a simple bone rig...

slide.zip

[tom182]

thanks AJ, any chance i could get in 2015 format -

[YoyoBoy]

Here are some examples of inflation with the cloth modifier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HWDhUawHvw

[AJ Jefferies]

thanks AJ, any chance i could get in 2015 format -

Here you go!

slide2015.zip

[tom182]

Cheers AJ, that works very well for a quick mock up