Hey

I am trying to do a chain link that swings from a characters chest plate. I tried building a low poly chain, linked the top link to the chest plate, assigned it as non-yielding with max dynamics, and all other links included in the collision test (vertex collision test)- no luck - it loses it after the first frame, even with a high time sample value.

Then I tried making a long IK link, and linking the target to a dummy controlled by a spring controller, which looks promising, but the IK only bends one direction -

Any ideas - am I doing something wrong?

Thx

have you taken a look at the havok products?..it works great...little or no wierd stuff happening.

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What?!.......

Simcloth from www.chaosgroup.com does excellent dynamics...its free...and has a chain tutorial I believe.

The dynamics system that ships with 3D Studio Max does not work as advertised. The only thing it does is simple collisions (stuff blowing up, spheres colliding, etc.). It cannot even handle a box settling on a plane (the box will eventually sink through, no matter what).

I highly recommend using the Reactor plug-in made by Discreet. It uses the Havok engine as a base, and it works great. I have actually made two chain links for a swinging object, and it worked beautifully. The only thing that bothers me is that Discreet should have made the dynamics system work as advertised, instead of charging us for another plug-in. There are other physics plug-ins out there.

I have also used the Simcloth script, but only for cloth simulations. It worked fairly well, but was sometimes slow and occasionaly crashed. It's also free, so you can't complain.