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Project Started:	9th January, 2008	Last Update:	15th January, 2008
Project Owner:	Noyb	Project Members:
Project Type:	Physics Toy, possible Sidescrolling shooter	Project Progress:
More Info:	http://realnoyb.googlepages.com/MarionetteUFOTest2-custom.exe	Faves:	0

Fluid Ropes

Posted 10th Jan 08, by Noyb

So I got in contact with Werbad, one of the extension developers, on the Clickteam forums and the solution was to add a sliding joint with a min of 0 and max of the string's length in addition to the fluid chain of pivot joints. Thanks to his help, the fluid string build is feeling more responsive. It isn't quite as responsive as the original rigid string one, but since it feels more natural, it might be a bit more intuitive. It also let me make the string pieces and the UFO more massive, which seemed to help the feel.

Anyway, I redid the original minigames with the fluid strings. I haven't quite decided how many partitions feels best, but I'm leaning towards 6. The joints still break down around double digits, but at least the lower numbers feel better. Download Link: http://realnoyb.googlepages.com/MarionetteUFOTest2.exe (520 kb)

Posted by s-m-r

10th January, 2008

Had a chance to briefly fiddle around with this earlier today...It's looking great! One of the ideas that comes to mind at the moment is a "rescue" game, where the player flies a helicopter, and lowers a rescue worker on a chain to pick up people, bonuses, and so on. I imagine buildings aflame, hurricane-blasted rural towns, and even earthquake-affected cityscapes would all make interesting locations in which to play. Maybe a derelict mine, for subterranean challenges? Adding wind resistance and so on will make it more challenging to control the helicopter, and the little rescue worker will bobble around even more due to "weighing less."

That was the one thing that bothered me about your engine test, to be honest. To me, it felt like the grey bar weighed too little, and was foating just as much as it was hanging from the chains.

Another peculiar happening which you may want to investigate is that the strings tend to stretch out, while the UFO tends to stay at the same distance. What I mean is that even if there's elasticity between the joints on the chain, there doesn't appear to be any actual increase in the distance from the stick and the UFO.

To see what I'm talking about, when you start the engine, move the stick to the center of the screen and begin to move in a circular motion (not rotating the stick), so that the grey bar begins to rotate around the stick. You'll see the green chain links begin to stretch outwards, while the grey bar keeps a relatively constant distance.

Also, have you tried this with smaller chain links? What was the result?

Posted by Noyb

12th January, 2008

Thanks for your feedback!

I'm still toying around with the weights of the stick/weight/strings as well as the gravity constant. I'll see if making the weight a bit heavier or increasing the gravity might make it feel less floaty.

The weird feel of the strings in your second point is probably coming from a solution I'm using to a problem I was seeing in an earlier build. In the Phizix extension, there don't seem to be any way to change the elasticity of a joint between two bodies, so the strings were stretching way too much. The solution suggested by the extension maker (http://www.clickteam.com/epicenter/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=72360) was to place a second joint over top of the fluid set of joints that make up the rope. I currently have that joint as a slider joint, which can range in length from 0 to the initial rope length, so the distance between the stick and the gray weight cannot get any longer than the initial distance.

That feels like a stopgap solution that isn't really addressing the larger problem -- that the joints are too elastic. Their length seem to be set when they're first created, and nothing about them can be changed after then, weirdly enough. Maybe I should try replacing the pivot joints with springs, of which I *can* toy with elasticity.

You can try it yourself with smaller chain links by increasing the number of partitions when the test program starts. I like the feel of 5/6 best. It starts breaking down around 10 partitions, where the joints can't seem to keep themselves together, and the strings just sag to the floor, the weight's movement just determined then by the slider joints.
Comment edited by Noyb on 1/12/2008

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