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You're right, I see. Other dynamic elements like cloth or dynamics do render correctly when only rendering a single frame later in the sequence. Interestingly enough, adding a null object with a collider tag does make the tracer evaluate from the beginning. Solving my issue! Thanks for pointing me in that direction.

That is exactly it. Huge thanks.

No, you are doing that wrong. You would ordinarily never just put a weight tag on an object - instead you should create one by using the SDS Weighting TOOL (M,R) to set a weight for selected edges. Once you have done that the tag is automatically created with the weight information you set. You should also Store Selection for the edges so you can get to them again if you need to adjust the weighting later, as there is no way to select previously weighted components. CBR

Ah! That's perfect. Thanks so much!

2 main approaches to that I would say... 1. Hard Surface: People may advise you that Star Splines in Extrudes are a decent starting point here but I would argue they don't actually save you much time over just modelling it properly, so I'd do that instead. 2. SDS poly model: Whereas with the HS method we start at the outside and work our way in, with the SDS method I would say better to start at the centre and work outwards. And we can use symmetry across the depth of it (here Z) so we only have to model one half. You could actually use 3 way symmetry here, but there is no real advantage to doing so because most of the moves we need to make next are radially based, and Symmetry on X and Y as well would actually make those moves more convoluted / awkward. So get a disc primitive, same radial segments as amount of ridges you want on the winder (I went with 24), make that editable, Inset and quadrify that, and gently curve it outwards at the front to get the nice smooth dome on the end. Then we need to get the ridges out of the perimeter, which we can do by selecting every other edge and Extrude outwards (90 degrees rotation), popping back to repeat that move on the remaining edges. That will give you this if you've done it right... Now we need to select all the outer perimeter edges, set the Scale tool to Normal Mode, tick Along Normals and drag on the blue axis band until we get near points (but don't go all the way to points), like so... Then I am sure you can see how we can move those back on Z to get the angle there, then select the whole perimeter, and extrude backwards, and zero-scale to make it flat, then move Object Axis to that rear loop and apply Z-symmetry, before adding control loops and SDS to give you something like this... CBR

Welcome Christoph. Glad to know I am not the only one who feels that way but rest assured that feeling only last a little while because someone always has the answer on this forum. Dave