Clothesline Effect

Is it possible to anchor a flexiprim at both ends to produce the effect of a rope strung between two poles?

No, it's not possible. There's no way to "anchor" the top, since the flex is only a client-side graphical effect. As far as the server is concerned, there's no such thing as flex; every prim is always perfectly straight.

If all you want is the appearance of a suspended cable, then there are of course lots of ways to model that statically. Getting it to behave dynamically like a flexie though is not really an option.

The mathematical shape is called a "catenary". No doubt someone could script a rezzer to make a chain of prims (links or rods) to form a catenary. But it wouldn't be flexible.

Would a square flex (squashed box, whatever) with a texture of the rope do for you? The top would be anchored all along that line, with the rest blowing in the breeze. Technically, it's not a rope like prim, just a flat representation of it, but would it work for your application?

A

That would be way better than my idea! 1 prim.

Btw, to calculate each point in the catenary, you'd use this code:

  z = A * ( llPow(E, x/A) + llPow(E, -x /A) ) / 2

where
x is the horizontal coordinate
z is the vertical coordinate
A is a parameter relating to the tension and density of the rope (that is, a constant to fiddle which will essentially adjust the height -- the flatness or steepness)
E is the exponential constant, roughly 2.71828183

Of course, that doesn't calculate the rotation, which is left to the reader as an exercise.

Hello...
if you can't attach anything to the flexi side of a flexi prim...then how do you explain the trees in the game...made by eric linden...they flex and have branches attached at the top that sway with the whole tree???
Thanks in advance for any replies...

The flexi-trees are multiple vertical prims swaying in the breeze.
For each of the thin vertical prims, the edge parallel to the ground does not move...its fixed in place.

My understanding is that these trees are special. You can't make Linden trees using prims.

Not really, that is what they will downgrade to if you have set the tree mesh detail slider low in your preferences. The Linden trees, when seen at full detail, are indeed spectacular objects.



The explanation is that *we* can't create objects like that, but the Lindens can.