fire hose

[dug]

We're designing a simulation for the kind of tasks First Responders have to do, like fire suppression, crowd control, triage, traffic control. Does anyone have an idea of a good way to model a fire hose? We can probably get the emitter end of it OK, but how about the hose part? A player would be holding the nozzle end and dragging it around. The far end would be attached to something, and in between it would be deforming as it was dragged.

 

[BinarySystem]

Soft body dynamics aren't supported by the Karma physics engine. However, you could get a semblance of this by making a skeletal hose mesh with a lot of bones linearly connected. This might be performance intensive, but it might be okay.

 

[dug]

That sounds like a promising idea. I've never done anything with bones apart from creating animations in 3DS. I guess this is Karma Physics land, huh? If I had such a snake-like hose, with a long spine, could I attach it at one end to a pawn and at the other end to some other actor, and have the bones constrain its movement and gravity keep it on the ground?

(When I say I, I mean one. Whether I have the skill and patience is another question.)

 

[BinarySystem]

Yes, you should be able to constrain the model like that, and gravity should handle the rest.

 

[dug]

Yes, you should be able to constrain the model like that, and gravity should handle the rest.

Thank you for the direction. We'll get started.

I just ran across the HoseIt weapon for 2004. I wish we could use that in the runtime for shooting foam onto fires. That would be pretty realistic.

 

[Vito]

I believe there are karma chain examples on UDN that would probably work well for a hose.

 

[dug]

I believe there are karma chain examples on UDN that would probably work well for a hose.

Thank you. KarmaColliseum? If I read the docs correctly, I won't be able to run it from the Runtime, but I'll study it.

Also I see a "hanging objects using karma" tutorial at leveldesigner.com which might be relevant.

 

[Jojodi]

I'm very interested in this. Are there any project files that I might be able to learn or study from? Alos, please email me @ Jojodi@bellsouth.net if you would like some help.