Active Bodies - How can i link a highres Mesh to a clone?

[olika]

Hi Phoenix Team,

exploring the active bodies right now and i have a question. I read and tried your active bodies guide and scene.
Now i`m wondering, if i have a high res boat, how is the suggested workflow to link it to a active body (i.e. low res dummy) to drive the boat?
Seems i cannot get it to work. Thanks in advance!

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey,

You should be able to sim with a low-res dummy object and after the simulation is done, link the high-res boat to the Active body clone.

What is the problem you are having?

[olika]

georgi.zhekov Hi! Thanks for your fast reply.
Jep that's the answer i expected and seems the only way to go right?

Let me explain a bit more what i want to achieve:

I'm still having this buoy issue. What i would like to create is the Ocean Cleanup Setup. I will try to attach a pic.
But it's like having different active bodies (as a link point) and then i want to connect them somehow to create that thick cable floating over the water surface and pushed up and down with the waves. How can we create something like this with phoenix. Also tested the tyflow fluid operator which gives some very interesting interactions with the water. Which seems to be a cool solution for all the dirt debris floating around but does not solve the issue of the floating cable.

Thanks in advance! and really looking forward to progress in that thing, Ocean cleanup would love it! please please please
Gretes Oli

[olika]

Here is pic from the system i want to recreate:

[olika]

Looks pretty simple right, but i cant wrap my head around what a good approach would be to solve it?

[JuhaHo]

I started a similar topic while ago. My solution is and has been to use XRef scene as a render geometry. In my workflow it's necessary to copy all the keys from simulated activebody to a dummybody that controls the XRef and propulsion emitter animation.

[georgi.zhekov]

Having geometry linked to the active bodies so it moves together with them is still in the to do list. I will add one more vote for it.

The only solution for now is to have the buoys and the connecting part as one geometry piece that will act as an active body.

[georgi.zhekov]

Another option as Juha mentioned is to make a copy of the active body geometry and just use the baked animation to link an object to it. You can make a copy of the simulated AB clone and then move the copy out of the Active Body Solver's layer in 3dsMax's Layer Explorer (everything in that layer gets deleted when the sim is restarted, so it does not interfere with the next simulation).

[olika]

Good Morning! thanks for all your reply! The forum is alive, that's really great to see!
JuhaHo i read your thread, it's the only one rising this question here in the forum, isn't it?
Just a question, the xref is just for the file size of the high res boat right? Or is it needed also because of things i don't see right now?

i'm aware of the pre-sim workflow as i did it that way in my Volvo ocean race project. Although i was hoping active bodies relieving me from that haha...
But ok, let's say we put a few active bodies dummies lined up as a U-shape onto the water.
Presim is not the problem here i guess, but how could i constrain the dummies from floating in some directions with the waveform.
As a real buoy i tied to the ground and only can move more or less up and down. You know what i mean?
Those dummies would just float somewhere, therefore creating a connection in the next step doesn't make sense, right?

If i could constraint those dummies to float somehow only up and down with the surface, then you could i.e. make a spline-ik through all dummies. With enough dummies that could work.

But wait a second, while I'm writing that, it comes to my mind, that, back in the days with the Volvo boat, i just surface attached a dummy to the water surface... that could probably bring me a step further. Let me try...

But, hey, i want to point out: thanks all of you contributing, can't say thank you enough! Sitting here on my own, this forum is so crucial for me

[olika]

Ha! I made some really great steps to solve the issue i think.
Have a look. There's two approaches that could work.

First Option: i pre-simmed the active bodies, placed in a u shape and was able to constrain them with increasing the "original animation influence" to keep them in place. Then i just draw a nurbs curve between the active bodies and put a spline ik over it to get the movement. Rest is just a sweep on top of the nurbs curve and then sim again. Looks very promising to me!



Second option: Is propably even simpler with the help of TyFlow's tyconform modifier (the native conform didn't worked on the first test so i tried tyconform and it worked instantly.
Here i just have to sim the fluid without everything and then put a plane over it and conform it via tyconform to the watersurface. Also works like a charm, awesome!



Let's see which way is the better for the next steps but i'm really happy about the progress because this issue is bugging me for a long time.

[georgi.zhekov]

Woah, great results! Keep us posted

[olika]

Hey georgi.zhekov , Svetlin.Nikolov i'll do!

Would be great if you can have a look at this in the meantime:

As i make good progress with the flexible corkline thing. There's one thing which is bugging me and i can't get rid of.
I want to just have foam created by splashes as advised in the tutorials and also only on the border to the corkline.
Therefore as advised i activated the Birth Volume and setup the Volume Fade Distance to the corkline body.

Assumed i did it correctly, why there is still some splashes and foam created at the boarders of the simulator.
Is this expected behavior when using thew wave force to generaste some force in the fluid? Or is this strange behavior?
Thanks in advance!
Btw. Rest is working flawlessly, can't wait to post first Motion Shots!

[georgi.zhekov]

The way you set it up should be working. Can you send us the scene so we can check what is going on?

Thanks!

[olika]

sure, which mail should i use?

[georgi.zhekov]

You can use the form here - https://www.chaosgroup.com/support/contact

Cheers!