Looking for springs and thoughts

[AlleyCat Tyles]

Not sure where to post but here goes:

I am working on a project and have done some musing. I want to throw out the concept and thoughts I have had on execution. Basically, before I invest a lot of time and effort, someone may have a more efficient approach or can tell me it won’t work. Anyways, my thinking is as follows:

 

I am going to construct a vertical equilateral triangular frame, pointing upward.

I have an animation where the avatar has both their arms pointed straight up. The legs are spread. Basically, if the avatar is centered in the triangle, the arms and legs point to the corners of the equilateral triangle, call it a Y animation.

The avatar will not be “sitting” on the triangle, sitters or any pose balls.

The avatar will be subject to the usual physics (see below).

The objective is to start the avatar centered in the triangle and return them to that position (coordinate) if they are “pushed”.

There will be a connection between the arms and legs of the avatar and the corners of the triangle so that the avatar is suspended. What type of connection will be the ultimate question, but first:

 

Simple first thought: If the triangle is vertical, the avatar will be off the ground and not standing. If perceived as falling by SL, an AO will have to be set to use the Y animation for falling. If the avatar is set to “flying”, that will eliminate gravity and again an AO will have to be set to use the Y animation for flying. I think that makes sense.

 

So the question is how to start the avatar at the center of the triangle (original coordinates) and should they be pushed, get them back to the center of the triangle (original coordinates).

 

The simple solution would be to have the connections between arms and legs and corners of the triangle be a set of springs. So looking up springs in marketplace, I had thousands of options! But after getting rid of spring fashions, I saw a few options for actual springs. I did not see that they were scripted to work like real springs, nor did they have attachment points. So the first question is, are there any springs out there that act like springs?

 

Now, about the only item I have seen that may come close is the leashes used on collars. If you set a length and it is exceeded, the avatar is pulled in that direction. I do note however it is more of a jerk than a gradual pull you would get from a spring. ((Which perhaps can be adjusted in the scripts.) So I was musing about getting the open collar scripts and putting them into a wrists cuff, left ankle cuff and right ankle cuff.  Then anchor them to the corners of the triangle. This gets to the can you wear more than one collar at a time, how will they interact, etc.

 

Ok, so I am musing here and not quite sure how of if to proceed. Any thoughts? Thanks for your time.

 

 

[Rolig Loon]

As far as the servers (and therefore scripts in your system) are concerned, they have no idea where your arms and legs are.  Your avatar is a cylinder.  Any animations that move arms and legs or twist the body are all handled client-side, invisible to the server that is responsible for keeping track of where that cylinder is.  So, your project is one of managing an illusion of ropes or springs that look like they are doing something, even though they are just along for the ride as the av moves. One way to do that is to create a stream of particles that are emitted from your av's hands and head toward spots on the chair or whatever the av is meant to be tied to.  I have no experience with leashes, but I suppose you might use them the same way. Aside from managing that illusion, the task of making your av "bounce" up and then return to the chair was the topic of your previous question. where you seemed to already have an answer.

[animats]

2 hours ago, AlleyCat Tyles said:

Not sure where to post but here goes:

Try the adult forum. It's obvious what you have in mind. You can do animations to give the illusion of what you want. Actual physical simulation, no. SL physics doesn't offer springs.

Useful hint: if you want an animation to not look repetitive, get four slightly different animations of the same thing and use them in random order, never doing the same one twice in a row. This works for audio clips, too. Drum machines use that trick.