Ye Old Ribbon Trick

"I need to simulate a paper going through a printing machine (press machine?) The paper does a complex route in the machine, attached to various parts of it - and changing form from a flat page to various round shapes (conforming to the cylinders that hold him). What do you think is the best way to accomplish this? I tried using LW_Serpent, but it a) changes the paper's length and b) rotates 180 degrees when the Z axis reverses direction during the motion. A chain of bones doing the same motion with delays bends the page too much on its sides. Any suggestions?"

One thing I did with a VERY similar project where I had to thread a filmstrip through a film projector was use morph targets.

make a curve that tracks the path you want the paper to fly, then make another path that's prefectly straight, and approximately the same length. MUST HAVE THE SAME NUMBER OF POINTS! Now just do a rail clone with both curves so you have two very long strips, one all curvy, the other perfectly straight. Load both objects into layout, dissolve out the curvy one and do a 100% morph on the straight one to the curvy.

Now for the fun part. Set up your texturing using ref nulls, and clip maps, on an unmorphed straight one so that whatever you want the paper to look like just fills the strip width wise, and turn off all the repeat options. Make sure your clip map only lets you see that part of the paper.

        ___
        |    |   <-\
        |    |  |
        |    |  |
        |    |  |
        |    |  <-------clipped out
        |    |  |
        |    |  |
        |    |  |
        |    |  |
        |__|    <-/
        |__|    <--------visible piece of paper

now when you animate your ref nulls on the Y-axis, the paper will seem to fly up, right? So when you apply the morph, the paper will fly along the path through you mechanics.

Rich Helvey