coil spring

[arnoldawson]

Does anyone know how to, or know a tutorial, for showing a coil spring being stretched and compressed?
I've got a feeling that I'm going to have to use a string of bones coiled with the actual spring, and somehow suitably weighted.
Or is there an easier way?

[Red_Oddity]

There is (to some extend):

Make a 2 point poly in the Y-axis (make it small, this is but a segment).
Do the Array tool (^Y), give it enough segments in the Y count panel(just do 180 for now)
Merge
Now use the Rotate tool (y) and set it's Falloff to Linear, draw the Falloff from the upper to the lower point (make sure it is ON the polyline/polychain).
Now rotate the object BUT, make sure the position of your mouse is where you want the centre of the spring to be (aand do it from the TOP view).
If all goes well,you should see a spring shape emerge...magic...
Select all the polygons, and Merge the polygons (Z).

Now create a Copy and Paste in a new Layer.
Use the stretch tool (h) to give the spring it's compressed state...

Create a tube with no height.
Place it at the first point of the coil (use Rotate (y) to place it at the right place)
Set the tube in the foreground and set the first spring in the background.
Do a Rail Extrude(^R), set the Segments to Uniform Lengths/Knots, set the amount to 180, or more...
Voila, a spring/coil...
Do the same for the second coil...

Select the Layer with first spring in the foreground and the Layer with the second spring in the background...
Go to the Map tab/panel (top of the screen) and select the Bkg to Morph plugin (bottom of the screen)...
If all went well, you now have a Morph of the compressed spring in the extended spring object...

In Layout just add the Morphmixer panel and voila...

Oh yeah, sometimes Morph Mixer does some weird stuff, like in the middle of you morph screww up certain parts of the object...i have not quite figured out what that is about...

Just use this as a basis to experiment further on...

[Red_Oddity]

This might also work with Skelegons i think...
When you have a coil ready, create a coil of Skelegons aswell (in the same way you created the Rail Extrude coil)...
Then in Layout, convert them to bones.
Select ALL bones, and move them along the Y-axis (in World Coordinates mode)...

Should work...

[BeeVee]

Why not make a circle offset from the origin, then use the lathe tool to create a spring (set the number of rotations and apply an offset for the axis - be warned, the offset is for the whole spring, not just the individual bits), then create the same thing again but use a different offset amount and morph between them? Keep the same number of sides so that the polygon and point count are the same and make sure you don't use too many segments for your initial circle - I used 8 in my example - because this will create a lot of polys...

B

[riki]

There's a tut here on Morphable Springs which might help

http://www.captainlightwave.com

[arnoldawson]

Thanks Guys.
Just the job.