Animating a Looping Soft Body Character

Question

I started using Blender a couple days ago, after messing with Maya on and off for years.

I would like to make an animation with an ending frame that is exactly the same as the first frame for a gif so that it loops. The object is a sheep which has wool and a soft body modifier. (I also have photoshop and I know how to make a gif using blender and photoshop).

So, I made a low poly sheep, rig, painted the weights, and then made a separate object for the sheep's wool. I painted the weights for that too. I added a soft body modifier, and I made it pretty stiff, I just wanted a very minor bounce affect to the movement in the wool.

However, I'm having a very hard time making a looping gif for it. I cannot add specific key frames with the soft body modifier... There is a small popping effect when the animation loops, because I can't get the wool on the sheep to return to a starting position. I thought I could make an ending key frame that is exactly the same as the first frame.

Any suggestions?

I'm also not committed to the soft body modifier. If there is another way to make the sheep's wool slightly bounce with movement using another modifier I don't mind trying that if I can have it loop.

Answer 1

Physics have a start and end cycle, there is no way to "reset" the cycle once it starts calculating. My goal was set based on a limited knowledge of how the physics work. The best way to go about my goal of making a looping gif, with the wool moving, is to add extra bones and weight the wool to the bones, and animate it manually.

Alternatively, if the pose/animation allows for it, when creating the gif, reuse the images in reverse for the second half, to make the illusion that the wool is going back into place. This doesn't work for some animations, but it'll work for a basic standing position at least.