Making a rope feel like it has weight

[zell2002]

I have built a rope with many bodies joined together as RopeJoints. It feels a little "floaty" at the moment not sure if I need to mess with the bodies Densities or the Angular Velocity (so they slow down faster?).

When my Character grabs one of the bodies and starts swinging, the rope doesn't "feel" like his weight is on there too. How would I make it so the rope goes more taut ? Is that changing the weightings of the bodies or something?

Cheers,

[ivan]

Basically, you have a "chain" of bodies there (commonly done using revolute or distance joints). Note that rope joints serve a different purpose. If you want to use the rope joint then - connect the first and last bodies of the chain and come up with an algorithm to draw the rope/curve between the two.

[zell2002]

Would you recommend I continue using this "chain" approach or should I switch to using the RopeJoint with 2 nodes?

I did start with that originally, but wasn't sure of best way of doing "Player grabbing between 2 nodes" or the Rope passing physical objects and needing to "wrap" around them.

[ivan]

It depends on the effect you are going for. A chain shape of revolute joints works pretty well and joint limits could be used to make it more stiff. I have used this approach to make pseudo soft bodies too.
You should always connect the first and last nodes using a rope joint to add more stability to your chain of bodies. This ensures that the chain cannot be stretched apart too much.