"Chains" between objects

Hey guys. Would anyone here be able to teach me a thing or two about putting "chains" inbetween 2 separate objects?

Here's an example I whipped up..but it kinda sucks.

<img src="http://i369.photobucket.com/albums/oo136/4Sweet2Leaf0/chainexample-1.png">

At the top, the 2 objects are idle and the chain links are stacked inbetween them. At the bottom, the 2 objects have separated and you can see the chain links inbetween them.

I've seen tons of games do this, but I've never found any examples on how it's done. I'll try to find a video to further demonstrate what I'm going for. Thanks for any help!

EDIT: Ok found a video showing this off perfectly. Make sure to skip to 2:45

You can see the "chain links" (those spikey balls in this case) that connect the boss to the background wall. How do they do that?! Thanks.

There's no good way to do this as of right now, but it can be done via the "family hack", or with python's picking ability for sprite{index}.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9bq7z78x1d902kc

I would say this is a good way to do it for now. You can add more links in the chain simply by adding more image points.

Hope that helps

6Fix beat me to it.

Still here is my example anyway, since it's slightly different using PVs to place instances of the same sprite on the appropriate image points.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2306601/chain_thing.cap

My only question, why is newt such a downer!? Just kidding.

And yeah I did separate images in case you want a color slant or something.

Nice examples. Pretty cool how easily things can be done in Construct.

I had to have a go at this, and I thought of the lerp() system expression. This would be useful if you need the number of links to change at runtime, too.

The first 'link' always is centered behind the 'head' in this example, and the rest are spaced in between it and the 'anchor'. This could be changed easily, though, by using 1/(Link.Count+1)*LoopIndex, or changing the 1 to 0.9, or something similar.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5868916/ChainExample.cap

Just make sure there is at least one 'link', or bad things may happen, unless a check for that were added.

These examples are great. Thanks a lot!

Quazi made one for me as an example using physics and sprite distortion. I can post it up here when I get on my other computer later if you are interested.

~Sol