Now that grasshopper ships with v6 now is the time to introduce a Physics engine using Daniel Piker’s Kangaroo.
Kangaroo physics toolbar within rhino should offer these basics
Cloth
Particles
Collision objects
Basic constraints
Although I’ve long thought that Rhino should have a time line like bongo if not, it would be good ui to have a slider controlling the frames to view the simulation and have an option that enables the current animation feature to record the frames and spit them out to an html folder the way the path animation works.
I don’t see why Mcneel doesn’t see these strengths in their program and give regular users and us seasoned users alike easier ways to use Kangaroo.
I really think it’s time to do this because why let this opportunity mold? I think it’s a piece of cake for Daniel Piker to do this considering his skill level.
How hard is it for Daniel to make a cloth plugin that the user clicks the icon chooses the cloth object/s sets the type of cloth then chooses the collision objects and then click simulate, no messy nerdy gh needed. Even 3dcoat has this type of cloth why can’t McNeel do this? This is a modeling tool so this is needed why are you guys not adding this?
Same with the rest of the above features surely these can’t be that hard to turn into working Rhino. And they don’t have to be as extensive as the Kangaroo toolbox they can be simplified with fewer options but should be robust and working. And for those that need more options and power they can go to Kangaroo proper.
I think this would add to the crown of Rhino and by v7 this toolbar could be something to advertise but ship it to us now as a plugin for us to bang on and make great for v7.
A key strength of Kangaroo(2) is exactly that it is not a black-boxed physics plugin, yet still manages to maintain a simple user interface (whether going through the standard GH components or code) and be wildy diverse/extendable in its use-cases. I’ve seen people that have never used GH before, get up and running with some basic form-finding and simulation in a few hours. It’s really not that difficult (or nerdy ) and can seriously empower you as a designer. Why wait, join the funz today!
Writing generic user interfaces and geometry discretisation routines are both hardly trivial tasks i.e. would take away substantial development time from core Kangaroo. Something I’d personally be bummed about. That said, I can definitely see a basic MakeCloth button and such. The cost-benefit (both as an end-user and from McNeel’s side) just doesn’t seem to add up to me (speaking as a long time Kangarooer and teacher). Perhaps a larger effort into documentation and training materials would be a better investment here.
From my viewpoint kangaroo is a design tool, not an animation tool.
It can be used for animations, but i think it is inefficient.
Why and how should it be useful in rhino?
If you need to do design with iteration/physics, then again you will need to set a lot of variables, and you end up with an UI not much different from grasshopper.
But yes, it would be cool to have a tool to do animations with physics in rhino.
Even rendering frame by frame, but that would having meshes with materials/textures… doing that with grasshopper/kangaroo, whose are heavy… seems “far” to me.
Hi Anders,
I just wanted these little things in Rhino, I think cloth is needed and should not be hard to do. Particles would be great for doing hair, fur, grass and leaves etc. Simple constraints would help the Rhino community in general. Collison would also be very useful.
I have played with it since it came out. I find it really counter intuitive and hard to use. I also find it amusing that Daniel has all these great videos but he never tells anyone how he did it nor does he try to make his stuff easier to use.
3d coat has cloth and even my cheap 2d animation program has a physics engine why can’t rhino by now? Wait Rhino does have one it’s just hidden and is really hard to use and next to impossible to get visual results out of.
RM
Hi Riccardo,
I agree I don’t want to change any of what the heavy Kangaroo people need. It is a design tool.
Having said that I think it could also be ported in a simpler but robust fashion as a physics engine for regular rhino.
RM
) and can seriously empower you as a designer. Why wait, join the funz today!