PART 4: GETTING THE ROPE TO FOLLOW THE BONE CHAIN

Finally we get to the part where the rope gets bent to the bone shape.

STEP 1
Load both objects into Lightwave and use the Convert Skeligons to Bones command. Its located on the Items tab: Add popup menu: Bones popup menu. The bones become visible.

STEP 2
Select the rope object and then select the Bones button at the bottom of the window. Now you can bring up the bones properties tab (press the "p" key). Set the rope to use bones from the skeligon object.

STEP 3
For all 7.5 users open the spreadsheet. Show the bones basic workspace. Select all the cells for rest rotation and set them to zero, by hitting the apply button. If you don't have 7.5 you will have to reset each bone individually. In that case I would use a lot less bones.

STEP 4
Also set the rest position for the first bone to be zero.

STEP 5
Now the rope is conforming to the bones, but it is too long. Open the rope's Object Properties window and choose the Deform tab. Under the Add Displacement popup menu choose Morph Mixer.

STEP 6
Double click on Morph Mixer in the list at the bottom of the Objects Properties window, and the Endomorph Mixer panel will open. The rope can now be resized by moving the slider left and right. We are now done making the rope. I saved the transformed rope as a new object and cleared the scene.

STEP 7
I loaded the new rope object twice into a new Lightwave scene. I rotated one of the objects 180° and had a good square knot.

The final render:

-Joe Lertola
6/13/02

Return: Tutorials page