Dynamics confusion

[lightningad]

i have spent a day building and filling a model of a carry case full of coloured building bricks. Each coloured brick has to be in its own section.

To achieve this i used a Cloner object for each colour, and a funnel ( Loft object with dynamics collider tag) When i play the animation, the bricks fall into the tray in a random pattern that looks natural.
After this i used the Set Initial State button to allow the bricks to begin in this finished location.
After 16 different colours, i have a box filled with the right looking bricks. Each time i started a new sector, i would go back to frame 1 and everything behaved as if the bricks were starting in the correct place

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Whats really puzzling me is this worked perfectly yesterday, but today when I re-opened the project, everything looks good (on frame 40) yet as soon as i return to frame 1, the bricks all retain the initial state shape but are now floating above the tray, ready to drop..and scatter randomly.

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I have tried resetting the Set Initial State - made no difference.
I checked there are no keyframes causing the bricks or cloners to move (there are none).
I even tried switching the Dynamics off once everything was correctly place, but as soon as i return to frame 1 - the bricks all jump back up to being above the box.

Any idea how i can have the bricks start inside their little compartments and not floating above the tray?

i would add the project file - but its 38mb in size (probably due to the 4000 bricks inside!)

[Dr. Sassi]

Hi ligthingad,

Try this, set the first frame to -1.
Then set the initial state. After that, cache, preferably with the MoGraph Cache.
Set the first frame back to zero.

Is this working for you?

All the best

[lightningad]

thanks Dr Sassi - i have no idea what that did but it does seem to have worked! Albeit frame 1 is correct and frame zero seems to have reverted to the cloners in their original states (so i'll start the render at 1 instead of 0 !!)

[Dr. Sassi]

Thanks for the feedback and lighting.

Have you tried the MoGraph Cache tag instead? As usual, I have tested it before answering, just in case 2023.2.1 introduced a change.

All the best

[lightningad]

i used the Cache tab on the Dynamics Body Tag. I didn't know the Mograph Cache Tag existed!

[Dr. Sassi]

It sounds like our chat here added some value to your work, lightning!

Thanks for the feedback. Very much appreciated.

Let me know if you need something else.

Enjoy

[lightningad]

@Dr-Sassi these chats always do...thanks for all the help and advice you give. Its invaluable and rare to get such great feedback from a product forum.

adam

[Dr. Sassi]

Thank you very much for the kind feedback, Adam; I love to do that.

If there is anything else, I'm happy to look in the morning into it. (midnight here)

My best wishes for your project.