Thanks for these Dr Sassi, I ended up doing this with the Reeper plugin. These are really great alternatives though, never would have thought to use the random effector on the curves! I'll definitely come back to these setups/ Thanks again and sorry for the slow reply. All the best for 2026 to you too!

Hi Dr Sassi, hope you're well.

I'm make a piece of thread travel along a path like 4 seconds into this animation: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/L4B6Agk_NbA?t=5&feature=share

I was able to curl some hair around a helix, then using a line I also have hair running lengthways through the thread where it frays a little at the end - so basically I have 2 hair sets.

I then tried spline wrapping both together and along another helix - but no matter what I try it just wont wrap correctly.

The curled hair seems to wrap ok but when I add offset along the helix its a bit funy.

But the line wont wrap at all, it just keeps freaking out.

Is this a limitation of hair or is there a better way to do this to keep the curled and frayed parts but have the whole thread travel along a path?

Here's my file so far: https://we.tl/t-iCYOf4sBql

Have a great new years if I dont hear from you before!

Awesome, thanks again for that and have a great Christmas and new years (if you dont hear from me again before!)

I ended up using edges for the project, I thought I tried every cobination of settings, but great to know it actually works in a cloner on polygons!

Shame there isnt just a simple constraint you can use for this kind of thing, makes it kinda complicated when doing a lot of objects.

Thanks again Dr Sassi!

I tried parenting it to an edge instead and it works fine. Looks like the normals in a cloth sim are fine on edges - weird that polygons get messed up though

Looks like the moving mesh (which was a cloth sim) is the problem - for some reason the normals flip randomly in the sim itself

here's just the original plane sim, you can see if you select any polygon that the normals freak out during the sim. https://we.tl/t-oyCm5fWeg2

Do you know if thats something that can be fixed? Or do polygon normals always go crazy in a cloth sim?

Cheers, basically Im trying to make a popup book - I want the page to turn (deform) and some paper objects pop up attached to the surface of the page.

Using the Cloner method almost works but as you can see in my project, it flips around strangley at the start

https://we.tl/t-0VUqoubtzG

I've baked the popup animation as keyframes, but the rotation seems to go crazy when it travels along with the mesh.

Any idea if there's a better way to stick objects to a page like this: https://youtu.be/1jxodEBzsRc

Cheers, I mean it needs to stick to the polygon and move along with it as the mesh moves and deforms, so it needs to be locked to the surface not just placed there

Hi again Dr Sassi,

Do you happen to know if its possible to parent a Null to the center of a polygon on a deforming mesh?

I can get it working with a Cloner or Matrix, but I was wondering if there was an easier way with Xpresso or Constraints.

I can constrain to Points with Xpresso and Constraints and to a polygon, but I cant get the Null to align to the polygon normal and have it stick while rotating.

Here's my test file, any ideas if its even possible? https://we.tl/t-5fPW19qO3C

Thanks again!

Awesome, thanks for that, worked like a charm! Been a while since Ive needed to rig something like this up, this work flow makes life much easier! Cheers!