I’m looking into Bongo for some basic animations. From what I can see, though, I suspect it cannot yet do what I want.
I would like to show the transformation of solid objects, for example how a beam flexes under a load. I see that morphing can be done with planes, however moving solid control points seems to have no effect.
Is this something that Bongo just can’t do now? It looks to me that it can only animate position and views for the most part…great if you want to show movement of an object, but not really what I’m looking for.
Thanks, Andy, however I just don’t see this happening, history or not.
Say I make a one rail sweep of a profile, then bend the rail…with history the sweep will follow the new curve.
If I try to animate this in Bongo, however, nothing happens.
I also can’t make any UDT operations by themselves that will be recorded.
Bongo seems to be strictly limited to position, rotation and scale with this release, unless I’m really missing something. I can find no documentation otherwise.
These types of things I know I can do in 3DS Max, but was really hoping to stay with Rhino as I know it much better.
If someone knows differently then please let me know!
A tip: the effect of morphing isn’t in realtime visible while ‘playing’ the animation. You can better step through by pressing (not clicking) the next arrow on the timelineslider.
Thank you, Luc. That’s the closest thing I’ve seen to what I’d like to do.
I don’t quite understand how you created it, though?
I see it’s apparently a one rail sweep, but I don’t get how to create this.
Looking at the keyframe properties doesn’t seem to reveal anything, either.
In beambend 000.3dm (126.3 KB) you see my first draft. Your assumption a 1 rail sweep is at hand is correct. Fase 1 shows the elements: a beam cross section (unamimated) and a line that will serve as rail. The degree of the rail is set to 2 (ChangeDegree command) in order to make it bendable and then it is made bending by morphing. The morphing technique is explained on Bongo’s page http://bongo.rhino3d.com/video/bongo-20-how-to-animate. The keyframe properties don’t reveal anything more than the simple fact the rail is morphed.
In fase 2 the beam is modeled by applying Rhino’s Sweep1 command with Record History active.
The result is not very convincing because the right end is bending along. Moreover the beam is not solid.
In beambend 001.3dm (172.9 KB) a second cross section at the right side is added. When it is included in the procedure of Sweep1 both ends remain vertical in the sweep. At least this allows to add 2 “caps” at the ends, hence simulating a solid beam. This way of bending however doesn’t comply with the real nature of bending beams.
This led me to the model I posted earlier beanbend.3dm (slip of the keybord “bean” stead of beam). The cross sections are being rotated so they remain perpendicular to the rail while it bends. Their pivot is placed at the end of the rail – keyframes coincide with those of the rail. Again the same technique is used: first animate rail and cross sections (fase 1) and then with Record History active execute the Sweep1 implying both cross sections (fase 2).
To make the “caps”, simulating the solid beam, rotate along I made them child of the rotating cross sections.
Thank you so much for explaining that…I think I’m starting to understand the process.
It is, unfortunately, both too many steps and not flexible enough for the various types of animations I’d like to make. I spent part of today looking at 3DS Max and even with the little I know there I can already see the possibilities are much greater when it comes to transformations that involve distortion. (As an academic I have access to this software through Autodesk’s licensing system)
I’ve been evaluating Bongo to see if I might be able to stay inside of Rhino and not have to learn another package, but I just think it would be an exercise in frustration…it’s just not how it’s designed (at least for what I’d like to do).
So thanks for explaining that process, anyway. I did learn a few more things along the way.
