SodaPlay anyone?

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Anyone played with www.sodaplay.com ?

I had it bookmarked for a year or two but never really built anything until now. Here's one of my favourites so far:

http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=Prometheus+TallDaintyTuned

My public models:
http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=Prometheus

[tyboogie]

a designer friend showed me that site a year or two ago--very cool stuff. never actual tried to build one. is it hard?

[Kortez]

OOoooohhhh, I used to play around in this one for unhealthy amounts of time. They never walked decently though :rolleyes:

[Hone]

I keep sodaplay high up on my Favorites list... here are some of mine...

http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=philwms+wheel

http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=philwms+than3

http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=philwms+drag

[Prometheus|ANJ]

It's not particulary hard once you learn the tricks.

The most important thing to understand is how the muscles work and that the lines try to stay the lengths they had when you originally placed them.
You can make a tension spring (I think that's the term) by making 3 points like a V and then drag them apart before connecting the ends so you get a triangle. The last long line you added will pull the V to a straight line. In a similar way you can make strong support lines for boxes (and other things) by putting lines that are longer than the diagonals of the box inside the box like an X

Here's a small tutorial
http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=Prometheus+tut

That link has a V with and without a sprint, and the same with the boxes.Note how the last box is stretched out.
Also, there is a rotary motion triangle on the bottom.

To make a muscle, click on the midddle of line so you see a dot on it, now look to the left side over the sliders at the bottom, there's a black dot there, drag it up to the sine line. The sine wave controls how the line stretches and contracts. Left side= little stretch, right = a lot of stretch in relation to the length of the line. You can also control the width of the sine line and the speed of it.

Here's a simple creature using 3 connected triangles plus a sprint that acts as a spine between the far end points.
http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=Prometheus+simple

By displacing the muscle points vertically you can make the legs move in shifts etc...

Edit: and oh yes, you build in construct mode, and do other things with the menues in the top of the windows. They're quite obvious...

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check out this guy:
http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=warptera

HiFi and lonelyswedish makes very advanced models too, check out the forum people also, there's a 'models' link under some nicks.

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Edit again...

Here's how you can build a 4 legged walker. Turn up gravity a bit. it takes a bit of tuning to make it work. The dead version is without the muscles or the sprint spine.

http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=Prometheus+simpletwo

After tuning g/f/k and sine stuff:
http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=Prometheus+simpletwotuned

Added sprint legs and something to pull the legs apart a bit:
http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=Prometheus+simpletwoaddon


Edit again...

Sigh I really have work to do...
http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=Prometheus+GiantStep


I must be the edit master...

This might be useful to know:
http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=Prometheus+tutweight




...

This is torture!
http://sodaplay.com/constructor/?getmodel=Prometheus+Aaaargh