Bendy 4
Gwenda Gronert
Hi, I like to reply as original poster. Yes, it is possible. The bendy bones use a limit distance bone constraint to make sure the length is constant. With this I could make it work great for my bendy bones puppet.
Here my blend file leg so you can see the settings.
Bendy bones use single weight/vertex group per entirety of the bent bone. At the same time the bone deforms as if it was a spline.
Unity, on other hand, works with assumption that bones can be represented as a combination of rotation, translation and scale. Meaning bones do not act like splines. Meaning, unity has no support for bendy bones from blender.
A workaround is possible, but it is not going to be easy.
Either you, during export, generate proper set of bones and multiple vertex groups for anything affected by bendy bones....
OR you write your own skinned mesh component that will handle bendy bones properly.
Bendy bones use single weight/vertex group per entirety of the bent bone. At the same time the bone deforms as if it was a spline.Unity, on other hand, works with assumption that bones can be represented as a combination of rotation, translation and scale. Meaning bones do not act like splines. Meaning, unity has no support for bendy bones from blender.
A workaround is possible, but it is not going to be easy.Either you, during export, generate proper set of bones and multiple vertex groups for anything affected by bendy bones....OR you write your own skinned mesh component that will handle bendy bones properly.
, post:5, topic:772746: I haven't tried it yet. But I guess it would work if we bake the animation and remove bones while exporting and import the mesh as animation itself?
You'd probably need to convert the key frames of the animation into Blend Shapes before importing into Unity. THen in Unity you could probably write an animation or script to move from one blendshape to another.
The only type of animation you can import is bone animation Not bendy bones, though, those don't count. There is no equivalent to bendy bones in Unity, and I think it's unlikely that the fbx file format even supports these.
Well said. One thing that I feel is very important to stress with bendy tech is it's reliability and ease of use in flight. Bendy tech mechanisms require no decoupling, don't need a large internal space to occupy, and one more massive advantage.
You see, when you time warp, the craft effectively reverts to whatever its original appearance was, as any flex is removed from the joints. Since Bendy tech mechanisms keep the craft as a single craft, even if they "break" you can simply time warp to fix them. This makes using them practically and bug fixing significantly easier for obvious reasons.
This ability to utilize time warp in this way is a prime example of the advantages that come with keeping the craft as a single vessel. And by for the largest for me, as I work with massive vessels where the revert and load times are quite significant. From my POV bendy tech is the future of stock mechanics.
Back in 2016 I had created a REALLY similar system, except that rather than using the new inter-part collisions as the guide bearing I used a decoupling shell. Because of the decoupling shell the joint basically had both the downsides of a traditional bearing as well as bendy tech, so it was really only ever used as a method of rotating engines on my Binary SSTO in order to keep them throttle able and as one single craft. (And yea, that was still in the era of landing gear bearings... man KSP builders have made such an improvement to mechanical things). Later I revisited the idea with my Binary 2, and redockable shell, but the design ended up being overly complex and convoluted. Other than that I only ended up using the idea as a the bearing for a tank turret (once again so that I could control both parts at the same time). Due to the need for a decouple-able shell (and overall larger size and complexity of bearings) the only real advantage the design had over a standard joint was the ability to control across it.
Also have you guys tried strings of Ant engines as the spring? I found them to be one of if not the most flexable parts. If i put 10-20 in a spiral (like a clock spring) I was able to get the joint to turn 180 degrees + in either direction pretty easily
If you've read through the examples in the original post, the mechanism will be extremely familiar - it's basically copy-pasted from the third example, with the only change being the addition of a guide (a single structural panel sliding between two fixed ones) to prevent roll input from messing up the hinges. It's entirely probably that even that isn't necessary. Another interesting quirk of how Variable-Incidence works is that you can use the grandparent autostrut without it breaking the structure, since the parts matched via symmetry are moving together.
I want to thank everyone who's been experimenting with Bendy Tech, and for inspiring me and everyone else. Again, this wasn't the effort of just me by any stretch. It was these guys who saw the potential in my little experiments and shaped it into something useful.
To step the motor clockwise, you alternate between pressing action groups 1 and 2. This bends the RCS ball ring 45 degrees, and clips it through the second ring (which has SVI disabled). When you hit the other action group, the sequences reverses and moves it another 45 degrees, by enabling the SVI on the second set of elevons and disabling it on the first. Then, the elevons return to their neutral position, which brings the ring of balls forward another step.
I've made a big ass Engine gimbal. A trick for making such large and heavy parts is to use a dumpling fuel tank as a joint held in place using inter craft collisions, otherwise the whole thing will wobble around way too much. It's already a bit wobbly as is, but it is actually useable. You can make parts without the tweakable to collide within craft do it anyways by using action groups, so these solar panels have it set to stage. This engine cluster has a vector engine because this ship is meant to be used as a ferry between a planet and moon, and it needs the extra thrust when the ship is low in the gravity well.
Improved the servo and made a cleaner video - functions the same, except that by rearranging how the elevons deploy, I have reduced the number of action groups required to just 2 - one to tick it one step, and the other to reverse the direction.
I'm currently in the mechanical testing stage on the elbow joint, which has been giving me a bit of trouble. The shoulder joint is a very simple RCS/Thermo hinge (you don't need anything fancier 90% of the time), actuated by a single elevon. That elevon is AG'd to forwards/back deploy limit adjust, giving the entire joint a 60 degree range of motion. More would be possible with an airbrake, but that runs into problems with the airbrakes over-deploying when used with the deploy adjust (devs pls fix)
Because of the airbrake woes I'm having to try out a series of different joint designs for the elbow here, which needs 90 degree actuation, on a small profile. Unfortunately, those don't mesh too well, so I'm still looking for ideas (up to an including recreating the servo joint to drive this joint. Possible, just not implemented). This is an attempt at doubling the effective deploy of the elevon. I think this has the most promise, but the idea needs a bit more refinement to be proven.
Here's another idea that I tried shortly - double stacked elevons. Idea is really simple: one elevon pushes the second elevon, which pushes the target. Unfortunately, due to the fact that joints prefer to translate rather than rotate, this isn't the most useful design without needing a lot of hinges (or one hinge with a bunch of rotators inside it... I've messed with stock hinges that have multiple rotating elements inside a larger hinge, so I could imagine a large Thermo hinge frame packed with thin communotrons all sharing the same hinge frame)
If anyone wants to develop any of these ideas further, or has good ideas for how to multiply the rotation of elevons, I'd love to hear about it! I'm genuinely so happy that other people are joining in in my weird pursuit of springs and things, so I'd really like to see what you guys can come up with
I have managed to make another breakthrough, usually the locked heaviest part autostrut would prevent bendy tech gears but with the help of a KLAW on free pivot that can be tricked to work anyways. Click the link above for an animated verison.
Made some progress today towards another holy grail of mine - full flaps/slats/spoilers on a pure bendy wing. This profile gives me the best chance of doing that, I think. I've integrated slats (the airbrake in the front is the main actuation) already, with plenty of room in the back for flaps, and at in the middle for spoilers.
The flaps are going to be another monster entirely. This weird looking mechanism is a linear servo which I built today. It works on the same principle as my other servo (stepped motion, each step moving the RCS balls one step out or back), and works reasonably well (given that the actuation is limited to 1.5m or less). More importantly, it lets you "set flaps to position 3" and do other fun things of that sort.
Bendy Tech takes advantage of the way that the stock game handles non-rigid joints in order to create more or less the same functionality as AnimatedAttachment without requiring the use of any mods or DLCs. Because of this last fact, it's primarily popular with the stock replica community. It even has a few advantages over DLC parts in specific areas, particularly in high strength (stock parts produce an effectively unlimited amount of torque when moving) and dynamic applications such as aircraft horizontal stabilizers (where DLC hinges often have trouble damping vibration or strength, and also can't be controlled using SAS)
JCEverett's MiG-31 Foxhound, which despite using the DLC in other parts of the craft, also has Bendy Tech Elevators thanks to their strength, reliability, and the ability to trim them using normal controls.
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