Hi,
I've posted this question to the Blender forum - I know, please don't shoot me for cross-posting, but despite 18 people checking it out, I guess no one has encountered this before in the Blender-world, so I thought I'd ask here - see if any of you have tried this.
I'm getting ready to submit my first freebie:

but I've run into a snag, a show-stopper. Whilst I can model the jib and jib-sheet to be static props (they don't move) the boom and mainsail do, and so therefore I need to have some sort of mainsheet assembly where it would adjust based on the position of the boom. I have two mirrored boom/mainsail props, for the corresponding tack (port or starboard) so the mainsheet travel would never have to be very far.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can best accomplish this?

Thanks in advance for any and all responses...
Cheers

Wow that's a challenge - so many angles and dimensions to change in the mainsheet assembly based on the angle of the boom.

If it's a showstopper, though, how about a quick dirty solution until you solve it: provide different static props (including the mainsheet assembly) for say four points of sailing on each tack.. i.e. close hauled, reach, broad reach, run... or whatever.

I guess you probably already thought about that though.

PS: a spinny would be great too!

**IsaoShi, reading light gray text on white is almost impossible.
**

I know awready! Sorry, I don't know why it went like that, and I couldn't fix it. If this comes out the same, sorry again. What I wrote was not much help anyway... just sympathy.

I think you may need to put bones (in Poser) where you want movement. Look for threads here on bones, there's any number of tutorials on them. There's one fairly recently about having something rotate, so that could be a help. Plus, there's always Doc Geep and his tutorials...

**IsaoShi, looks like your postings are fine again. ;)
**

Thanks IsaoShi and pakled for your input. Yes, the challenge is there, no question. I've been looking at props to see if any have elastic properties - which I could then apply to those sheets, but "not found" has been the outcome of that research.
Bones, eh? Never thought of barking up that tree. I suppose it would give me the ability to give the sheet an origin point and an insertion point, just like what bones do... that might be the answer. I'll have a look at some of the tutorials and get back to ya.... thanks for the pointer, pakled. Had no idea where to look!

I suspect the answer may lay in welding. When two actors are welded they can be pulled apart without breaking. In in the attached image, the translate channels have been unhidden in Posette's shin. The shin has been moved down and to the side, but it still remains connected to the thigh because of the welding. I think you may be able to exploit welding to stretch out your mainsheet as the boom swings. "Point At" may also be useful to you. The way I'm thinking (this is only theory) is that a block on the deck could Point at another block on the boom, which in turn points back at the other block, the sheet would either be a child of one of the blocks, or an actual part of one block, and would be welded to the other block. vertices in the sheet would need to line up exactly with vertices in the block for the welding to work. Perhaps if the sheet is a closed cylinder, you could spawn a cylinder cap and make it part of the block, to give the sheet something to weld to.

This is all just brain-storming on my part, never done anything like it, not sure if it would work, or what problems you might face with it. Good luck!

P.S. The boat looks great!

I've run into a similar problem when doing my freebie sailing boat.
And I've solved it. It takes quite a few bones, "illegitimate" welds and Point-At behaviors.
You're welcome to download my boat from freestuff and inspect the .CR2 file to see how it's done.

@ RobynsVeil,

Well here she is, my new luxury yacht, the "Flying Dustman"! Eat yer heart out RobynsVeil!

Actually this is a proof of concept model, to test my ideas about welding and Point At. She is mostly made out of poser primitives, The hull is a box prop, the other parts are cylinders, the only part that isn't a Poser primitive is the rope  which I made in Metasequoia (making a cylinder is amount the limit of my modelling skills).

The idea seems to work quite well within its limitations. The limitations are that although the rope will stretch as far as you like, it will not bend. As a result it looks fine hard to the wind, not too bad on a reach, but totally unnatural on a run.

I have just seen svdl's post, and imagine he has done something really brilliant as usual, but you might still like to take a look at my file, as at least it has the virtue of relative simplicity. If you want to take a look, IM me your email address.

les: I used Point At and welding too, it works like what you're showing here.
I made that boat a couple of years ago, and since then I've learned a couple of things. It might be possible to combine Point At with inverse kinematics and easypose rope sections to make the rope bend and droop when required.
Got to try it out someday.

Quote - I've run into a similar problem when doing my freebie sailing boat.
And I've solved it. It takes quite a few bones, "illegitimate" welds and Point-At behaviors.
You're welcome to download my boat from freestuff and inspect the .CR2 file to see how it's done.

Aww, jeez, svdl... just had a look at your .obj in Blender: your modeling is superb! Nothing like looking at a master's work to point out I've still a long way to go. Your mesh is so tight, so clean: incredibly nice. I'll get there, but it'll be a while yet.

Looking at the .cr2 and jeez, you guys are fast! You've solved it, looks like, and thanks heaps for that! Going to do a bit more modeling tonight and have my trusty tester make sure there are no show-stoppers and another little sailboats sails into the freebie harbour...

Thanks again, svdl and lesbentley! You're legends....

Well, I used a high end modeler to make the boat (3DS Max 6). Makes clean modeling easier. Blender is a capable modeling app, but when it comes to ease-of-use and shortcuts, it can't compete with Max.
Then again, Blender is free while Max is about $3500... You can't beat Blender when it comes to value for money.

**How long is a piece of string? ** Decided to post the text of this cr2 in case anyone wants it. A piece of Poser string. Two props parented to a BODY actor. the FagTop prop is welded to the FagBottom prop, and they point to each other. You can move either prop in any direction, the string will stretch like a piece of elastic. There is a "Diameter" dial in the Body to control the thickness. It can be a bit fiddly to select the FagBottom prop with the mouse, as it is in the same location as the Body, probably better to select it through the menu.

Save the file to a Character folder, without the ".TXT" part of the file extension.

Yo-yo any one?

All that input deserves an update - modeling furiously away, and YOU will be the first to see the fruits of my labour. No, svdl, my little sloop won't ever be of the quality you've shown. I'd have to start from scratch to do that. And, as you suggest, perhaps Blender doesn't offer an environment where I can be as accurate in my design as you were. It's all I can afford, though. I'm poor. I do like what's out there for free, and I want to take full advantage of it.

Whilst my little sailboat may not be an engineering marvel, it is full of whimsy and it'll all work in Poser and Daz Studio and who knows, someone might find it worth-while.

Les... thanks again for the well-documented .cr2 - very easy to follow what you did, and what I need to do. Just trying to get the block and tackle looking right and we're laughin'....

Okay, an update. I've gotten a bit stuck. Probably need to avail myself of a tutorial or something.

(I did do a bit of a tangent exploring Kerkythea and rendering transmapped hair - can be done, but there's a few hoops to jump through - but what an AWESOME renderer!!!!).

When I looked at your .cr2, Les, it all seemed really clear. However, that ...er... fag top and bottom comprise the body, which is the parent for your exercise.

Now, I've imported my little sailboat in bits from Blender, with the Hull being the primary object: ergo, the Parent. All other bits twist and turn and swing and sway along with this parent with the "inherit bends of parent" tick box ticked when you do the "change parent" thing.

Before I started importing any of the bits related to the Hull, I brought the hull into the setup room, then exited, thus creating a figure... right? Is that how it works? or did I miss something? In any event, after that I brought up the .cr2 in my favourite BIG text editor (NotePad++) and changed Figure1_SETUP to Hull... and the .cr2 looks pretty much like I want.

Geez, I wish there were a Kerkythea-like manual for doing this kinda thing! Been looking, but all I find is stuff for Poser 4!

Anyway, imported the other components, like the jib and the rudder/tiller and the rigging and the mainsail/boom/toppinglift assembly... always setting the Hull as parent (with the inheriting box ticked) before I set the joint parameters (where the tiller is meant to swing, or the boom, or whatever...)

What I end up with is a sailboat that pretty-much does what it is meant to. It heels, the boom swings out and the mainsail with it, the tiller/rudder rotate on the y-axis +40 / -40 (so the tiller handle doesn't embed itself into the side of the cockpit... anyway, you get the idea.

What I do have is One Actor called Body, with everything else a prop. Even the hull is a prop.

Perhaps I should stop there. Comparing my .cr2 to svdl's, you've got heaps of actors - no idea how you managed to make all these objects actors! - where I only have props.

I feel like I'm so close, but am missing some crucial info...

...and thank you, both of you, for having an interest in this!

The easiest way to make a figure including actors is using the hierarchy editor. Here's how it goes:

• import all the separate actors-to-be into Poser, you now have a hull prop, a rudder prop, a mainsail prop, etc.
• use the hierarchy editor to drag "children" onto their "parents". The root of the hierarchy should be the hull prop. You'd see something like this in thei hierarchy editor:

GROUND
hull
  +-- rudder
  |     +-- tiller
  +-- mast
        +-- boom
        +-- mainsail
        +-- jib

Then select the "Create new figure" button. The new figure will be automatically saved in the "New Figures" library of your main Poser runtime.

Create a new scene and load the figure you just created. Turn on the Joint editor and reposition the bones as needed - there will be a lot of repositioning!

The "illegitimate welds" can only be edited in manually, there's no way in Poser to do this. I use CR2Builder by kim99 for this kind of work, freely downloadable at http://www.geocities.co.jp/kim99x2003/tool/CR2Builder/02e/indexe.html

I'ts pretty usual for figures to have geometry for each and every bone. In my sailing boat,however, there are quite a few bones that have no geometry. They only serve as anchor points so that other bones have something they can "point at".

A good manual for doing this - yes, it exists. The book "Secrets of figure creationh" by B.L. Render (known as bloodsong here) taught me all of these tricks. Not cheap, but well worth the money if you're into creating figures.

Quote - The easiest way to make a figure including actors is using the hierarchy editor. Here's how it goes:

• import all the separate actors-to-be into Poser...
• use the hierarchy editor to drag "children" onto their "parents". The root of the hierarchy should be the hull prop...
  -select the "Create new figure" button. The new figure will be automatically saved in the "New Figures" library of your main Poser runtime...
  -Create a new scene and load the figure you just created. Turn on the Joint editor and reposition the bones...

Did exactly that and lo and behold, a figure was born with a whole lot of actors instead of props. Yeah, this is cool. I've kinda been over this road before, only now the bits are all proper actors, which is probably necessary for that weld-pointAt thing to work properly.

Totally thrilled, I tried to swing the tiller back and forth and to my horror watched the whole boat deform. Hmmm bizarre. Kinda did a bit more reading in tutorials and figured "Bend 1" had to be set to "Bend 0" all throughout the .cr2. Boat being a mechanical object, not organic.  I can also see your point as to where I'm really going to have to invest in

Quote - The book "Secrets of Figure Creation" by B.L. Render ...

Pretty much a necessity... and available at Amazon for as little as $22 plus 12.49 shipping (to Oz) - better save up my shekels, hey?

One of the things I've done is save my first imported props as a .pz3. That's my first intermediary stage... and here is the hierarchy editor at this stage:

The second is the first .cr2 created by the hierarchy editor. Then, I've just been doing my .cr2 edits in Notepad++. I can set channels off and on pretty easily, enable limits, confirm all my texture paths are correct, and even change the internal names of my actors! Oooo I like to live dangerously.

Now, what I was going to try with clever welds and pointAts was:
-The boom is parented to the hull
-The upper pulley is parented to the boom
-The mainsheet (rope/line/whatever) is parented to the upper pulley
-The lower pulley is parented to the mainsheet
-The Slider is parented to the lower pulley
-The track is parented to the Slider
...thus:

Easing myself into this, I'm going to print out the juicy bits of your .cr2 and see how you did the welds and PointAts and IKChains... I'll let you know how I go... oh, and of course if you kinda see me heading down the wrong path, please let me know.

Hey, this is FUN!

Okay, getting closer.
I had the parent/child relationship of:
-The boom is parented to the hull
-The upper pulley is parented to the boom
-The mainsheet (rope/line/whatever) is parented to the upper pulley
-The lower pulley is parented to the mainsheet
-The Slider is parented to the lower pulley
-The track is parented to the Slider

backwards (and inside-out) in the hierarchy editor... based on the deck pulley / mainsheet relationship on your boat. Fixed that. Now it looks like this:

Not going to majorly edit that .cr2 - when I do a Create New Figure again - until I get all the IKchains and welds and Point Ats looking and behaving  right.
BTW, what is a "Schot"? Old nautical term?

You're very authentic with your boat - I had to look stuff up or a lot of bits would have ended up being called "thingie"... still not sure what that thingie is called that holds the lower pulley to the mainsheet track and slides back and forth... and whether the mainsheet track is actually even called that. Did a bit of sailing, but never formally learned how, so a lot of the bits were "thingies"... good job I mostly single-handed, so not-very-often had to give commands or anything.  :blink:

Oh, and Les, your Fag / Yoyo has come in handy for understanding the relationship between welds and Point At stuff... and thanks again. Didn't mean to seem like I'm ignoring or dismissing your work - I'm very grateful!

BTW, why "fag"? As in, Pommie for "cigarette"?

Okay, stuck again. Really stuck this time, I think.

I've been back and forth from my cr2 to the Open Boat cr2, and where things break down is the hip. My cr2 doesn't have one, the Open Boat does - I'm assuming "hip" is just the internal name for Hull. Welding is done to the hip a lot, as in:
    weld    boom:2
    hip:2
    weld    mainSail:2
    boom:2
    weld    gaff:2
    mainSail:2
    weld    pulleyBoom:2
    boom:2
    weld    pulleyDeck:2
    hip:2
    weld    schotMain:2
    pulleyDeck:2
    weld    schotMain:2
    pulleyBoom:2
    weld    foreSail:2
    hip:2
    weld    lSchotFore:2
    foreSail:2
I'm taking this segment to mean:
    weld    boom:2 ...to... hip:2
    weld    mainSail:2 ...to... boom:2
    weld    gaff:2 ...to... mainSail:2
    weld    pulleyBoom:2 ...to... boom:2
    weld    pulleyDeck:2 ...to... hip:2
    weld    schotMain:2 ...to... pulleyDeck:2
    weld    schotMain:2 ...to... pulleyBoom:2
    weld    foreSail:2 ...to... hip:2
    weld    lSchotFore:2 ...to... foreSail:2
So, it kinda makes sense. The pulleyBoom and the pulleyDeck are pointed at each other, and the schotMain (which is your mainsheet) is pointed at the pulleyBoom. Welding of the pulleyBoom to the boom ensures they'll be inseparable as does the welding of the pulleyDeck to the Hull. Yeah, I can do that to the Daysailer too... so I did.

However, whenever I tried to do Point At stuff, things went catty-whompus. The boom tweaked, the mainsheet shrank and flopped, and nothing seemed to work. I got the sense that some underlying force was not being properly dealt with.

But what?

I noticed that when you do a Create New Figure from the Hierarchy Editor dialog - so that it ends up in the New Figures folder - the resulting .cr2 has the geometry embedded in the first part of the .cr2 and there are no groups under channels. IOW, no place to add a Point At groupNode.
After loading that boat from the New Figures library, and saving it to my folder as a .cr2, it took out the geometry - creating an obj file to hold it in - yet only the Hull actor has as sub-entry groups under channels.

"Groups..." I thought, "where are groups set up? Set-up room?"

Well, I took my little boat - the one i had just loaded from my own library, from which obj stuff had been separated - into the setup room, and lo and behold, I saw bones. Bones that need to be appropriately accounted for and dealt with.

Back to loading the Open Boat and check out the bones. There's got to be a more systematic approach to all this - I feel like I'm chasing my tail....

Should probably stop for lunch....

Bones. Gotta get them bones right for what I want for the behaviour to be... um... like... right. Read the Dr Geep thing on creating props... talks about IK chains, and breaking them and now I'm really confused.
Anyway, I tried lining them as with the associated "body part" - we'll see if Point At will hiccup now. And.....
Bingo. Worked.

It was the bones. Now, edit the CR2 to weld the track to the hull, and check that the point Ats are all good, and we're laughin'....

This has become a sort of bizarre monologue - everyone must be on hols* or something. No dramas... I'll just keep workin' away... and giving a blow-by-blow as I go.

So, I've been adjusting joint parameters, sasving the result as a cr2, loading the .cr2 into a text editor, setting "hidden" off for the most part, on for a select few that I rename and set limits for... hey, this is brilliant. I can do this! The more I learn about cr2 files, the better I can control what the user can manipulate. It's all good!

• Australian for 'holidays' - we shorten bloody everything!

One last update... and a shameless beg for help...

I have been studying FagTop and FagBottom and schotMain and pulleyDeck until my eyes are bubbling... but I just can't figure out what I'm missing. I've got the whole thing working... with the exception of the mainsheet not stretching:

---

The mainsheet is welded to the Bottom pulley and to the boom pulley... so when the boom swings out, the two pulleys point at each other whilst the mainsheet also moves appropriately - it's all good, except for the mainsheet top - the bit that is welded to the top pulley. It appears to come away when the boom swings out. I opened the .cr2 in Notepad++ to double-check that all the bits are welded... and they are:
    weld    SternHatch:1  
             Hull:1
    weld    Tiller:1  
             Hull:1
    weld    Track:1  
             Hull:1
    weld    TrackSlider:1  
             Track:1
    weld    PulleyTrk:1  
             TrackSlider:1
    weld    MainSheetAft:1  
             PulleyTrk:1
    weld    MainSheetAft:1  
             PulleyTop:1
    allowsBending 1 
    figureType 1318 
    origFigureType 1318 
    canonType 8 
    conforming 0

I've got bend set to 1 for the MainsheetAft - I thought that governed stretching. I noticed that you had forceLimits set to 4, svdl - I guess you didn't want Poser to over-ride your settings, right? I'll probably do that as well.

I feel I'm so close... just that one glitch to overcome... if you want, I could post the .cr2... but only if that's okay with you.