FLEX Documentation

Anyone know where I can find information on flex documenation? Thanks very much.

As far as I know there isn't yet any "documentation" on the Flexible Path feature aka flexi-prims. If you have a specific question ask away in this forum. There are various uses for Flexi-prims: hair, clothing, flags to name but a few.

...Before I finished writing this reply I IM-ed and spoke with Cal. Below is a transcript of our meeting, which is a very rough "documentation". Please add to it and correct me where I err.

[12:49] You: ok Cal, what you got to imagine is that a flexi prim is like the tuning on your cars suspension
[12:49] Cal Alexander: okay
[12:50] You: softness is a whole number from 0 to 3
[12:50] You: generally stick to 2, as 3 uses more polygons than is really nessesary
[12:50] Cal Alexander: ok
[12:51] You: although you can play around with that to get what you want
[12:51] Cal Alexander: kk
[12:51] You: gravity you'll need for dresses
[12:51] Cal Alexander: yes
[12:51] You: otherwise they'll float over the girls head
[12:52] You: drag is the dampening effect, how long it takes for the "top" to catch up
[12:52] Cal Alexander: ok good, this is what I wanted to know *s*
[12:52] You: high number takes longer
[12:52] You: low number moves faster
[12:52] Cal Alexander: got it *s*
[12:52] You: wind does exactly what it says on the tin
[12:53] You: the larger the number, the more influence
[12:53] You: tension is like the spring in your suspension
[12:53] You: high number doesn't allow for much movement
[12:53] You: low number gets pretty loose
[12:53] Cal Alexander: good ty *s*
[12:54] You: and the force values can be used to push the "top" around
[12:54] You: which is what I use on my "flexi-hedra"
[12:54] Cal Alexander: top of prim?
[12:55] You: yeah, if you don't rotate the prim then the "top" is the free end [+ve z]
[12:55] You: and the "bottom" is the fixed face [-ve z]
[12:55] Cal Alexander: need to rotate *s*
[12:55] You: yeah, you'll want the fixed end at the waist to be a dress
[12:56] You: like so
...
[12:58] You: smaller prims (along the z-axis) don't move as much as longer ones
[12:58] Cal Alexander: god you just gave me documentation
[12:59] You: =)
[13:00] Cal Alexander: man you were a big help *s*
[13:01] You: I'm going to copy and paste our convo into your thread
[13:01] Cal Alexander: great
[13:01] You: incase its useful to anyone else
[13:01] Cal Alexander: it will be

you need a doc for 4 values?

/16/1a/100115/1.html

All you want to know about Flexi prims.

I made some mantas rays using the flexi objects on the wing tips. Came out pretty neat.

Thanks for that. I'm trying to figure out how to make hair. Does anyone know where I can get some more help? Are tubes the only prims that can be flexible?

Cylinders, cubes, and the prisms all have the flexi feature. Use the taper, skew etc to change the shapes of them for the hair.

I.e., to make a flexi ponytail use a cylinder tapered to a large oval shape at the end at the bottom and a smaller oval on the part that is near the head.

For frace framing locks, I use a semi-flattened cube and that will give you a straight hair look. Just be sure not to flatten them too much or they will lose their "body" when they move.

The shorter a piece is, the less flexi it will have so just play with the settings to get the flow you like.

But you can play with them to see which best fits your designs.

Best,
~Ari

I see that one of the 'bug fixes' with the latest update was a fix for a LOD issue with flexi-prims.

Well I didn't have any issues with flexi prim LOD before the update - but i do now... Most of the time my flexi-prims only have two sections - sometimes they manage 4. More usually one can manage 4 and tanother 2. Before the update they might have had 8 - im not sure - but at least they had 4. Now they look kinda lame.

As usual my flexi graphics prefs are the highest they can be.

Anyone else had this problem?

So which prim would I use to make this:
Tallit (jewish prayer shawl)

I am curious because I would like to make one eventully.