IanHubert

Setting up a Physics-Powered Crane

Added 2025-07-09 07:57:55 +0000 UTC

Alright! I'm back from a (somewhat) unexpected London return! For good this time(?) Thank you so much again for your patience...

Just to get the ball rolling, I finished up a video I recorded a couple months ago, another foray into physics: setting up rigid body simulations so you can kind of "puppeteer" them in real time for use in a shot.

I feel like I keep talking about physics, but over the past few months it's totally changed the way I think about setting up my VFX scenes (or at the very least, I'm constantly wondering "what could I add that wiggles/dangles on top of all of this?") I just tend to feel more comfortable tweaking physics variables than I am pushing around IPO curves. And when done right, it could potentially save a ton of animation time for elements you see repeatedly.

It's a bit tricky jumping straight back into the boat episode; until I get momentum up, the amount I have left to do feels pretty intense- though I did finish like 10 shots yesterday! Admittedly 9 of them are recurring shots of a monitor- but still! The timeline is filling out!

But some of my antsiness is because I spent most evenings in London working on the script for the spaceship stuff we're going to be shooting, and for the first time I feel like I'm sitting on a story with some actual momentum, and I can't wait to dive into it- I'll have to tell you about it soon!