Just perfect !

Hi Dr. Sassi,

Wow! Thank you so much, that was really helpful. I was also trying with the twist deformer, but the imperfections in the mesh need to be fixed. Maybe if I remesh the spring in quads and use a spline deformer? I'll give it a try!

Thanks a lot for your help.

All the best,

Mirko

Hi,
Thanks,

Please find attached the CAD part that I have to animate,

cadpart.c4d

All the Best, Mirko

Hi Dr. Sassi,

Thank you for the example – very helpful! I'll need to check with my CAD files to see if the shape of the spring could be a match. or how I can tweak it

All the best,

Mirko

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to create a mechanical watch balance spring (also called a hairspring) in Cinema 4D. It's the flat spiral spring you find in the movement of mechanical watches — it expands and contracts rhythmically as part of the oscillator.

I’m looking for a way to model and animate it in a controllable way — ideally with parameters that allow me to control the number of coils, spacing, and possibly animate the compression/expansion over time (simulating the heartbeat of the watch).

So far, I’ve tried using the Helix spline, but it doesn't give me the tight, flat spiral shape I need. I also thought about drawing a custom spline manually, but that’s hard to control and animate.

Has anyone built something similar? Is there a procedural way to build this type of spring, maybe with Xpresso or deformers? Any tips on animating the contraction and expansion realistically would be much appreciated!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpCknwUFxdI

Thanks in advance

Mirko