'Free-Fall' mode for Rope

[josemendez]

@Nizmo,


Thanks for your reply. We were actually using that method at first, extending from the ApplyTearing() script in ObiRope, and we are definitely using a Cursor, since this is required for extending the rope. We followed the Crane example very closely before attempting anything.

Determining whether or not there is strain is not the issue, it's what to do in order to relieve strain at all times.

Hi!

It is highly unlikely that ObiRope will support something like this out of the box in the future, as it is a very specific use case.

Depending on what you want to do, there might be better solutions to this. Calculating the entire rope's strain but then trying to minimize it by changing the length of only 1 constraint -the one directly affected by the ObiRopeCursor- is acceptable for some uses, but certainly not 100% physically accurate and will result in sudden "jumps" if used in this particular scenario.

Suppose you need an infinite rope to constantly fall from the top to the bottom of the screen, in 2D (this is a long shot and probably not exactly what you're looking for, but taking advantage of the limitations imposed by a particular scenario will oftentimes simplify things):

For every particle that goes out of the screen trough the bottom, spawn a new one at the top. (link constraints appropriately, like ObiRopeCursor does, and spawn the new particle from the rope's particle pool, also copy the velocity from the bottom particle and apply it to the one you just spawned). Then, return the particles that went trough the bottom to the rope's particle pool. Depending on where you spawn the new particles at the top, the behavior of the falling rope would be different.

This is a relatively simple approach that doesn't require to deal with physics calculations at all, and would result in an infinitely long, free-falling rope. Hopefully it will inspire you to try some other approaches. 

cheers!