Move the circle
Above are two bodies, constrained together relative to their
centers. After stumbling on a roughly 9 minutes video about
procedural animations and simulating biological movement, I wondered
if I could turn a couple sentences into actual working code. This
being the first step of that process.
When two bodies are constrained at a distance an interesting
behavior is observed where the larger body takes precedence as you
would have also noticed, the bodies above bare a lot of resemblance
to a planet and it's moon. Yet another point for Einstein's General
Relativity
Move the highlighted circle
Although restraining two bodies at a distance relative to each other
is quite cool. Even more fun than a simple distance constraint is a
multiple distance constraint where each body is constrained to the
one before and or after it, with each point of contact between the
bodies acting as a sort of spine.
Using this simple concept we are able to simulate the movement of
different animals, ranging from worms to reptiles.
Move the head
In order to properly simulate animal movement a few faults are to be
considered, for example;
The body of our animal curving in on itself and bending past what we
would consider natural .
With the introduction of a few rules like;
1> Preventing every Nth circle from colliding with circle Nth+2 and
Nth-2
2> Enabling the "head" to collide with the rest of the body.
We achieve a more natural movement for our animal, concluding our
biological simulation.