Follow Path as a pseudo bone

[GCharb]

Regular limbs will not use that kind of setup, too many bones for nothing, but it would be great for thing like snakes or an octopus.

Thanks a bunch selgin, most appreciated!

[Víctor Paredes]

Hi, I use a simplification of madcon arm to make rubber hose animation. Look for "luggage guy" on library and check its arms and legs rig.

I used the same rig for tails, you can get nice smooth movements with four or five bones, even with less.
I wasn't sure to show this tiger on this thread, but this is part of a more complex experiment with rubber hose and follow path.
This is the story, I needed to have the legs curved, so I used the simplificated madcon rig. The leg basically has six points (just like in luggage guy), and they move maintaining the curvature of the points.
The problem was the lines of the legs, they didn't work good with the rig, there was no way to make them follow the smooth curve of the leg.
So I put a path of three points on the leg, bing each one to the rig, drew the lines in a new layer and made that layer follow the path. It is hard to explain, but it worked fantastic. I uploaded the anme file of that leg so you can check it.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54411/AS8/forum ... 20leg.anme

[GCharb]

That tiger cracks me up!

[funksmaname]

that's great thinking Selgin

btw, i noticed the front leg lines are above the head layer

[Víctor Paredes]

btw, i noticed the front leg lines are above the head layer

hehe, you are right. There is a bug in follow path. You can't have the "follower" layer inside the same group the path layer is. The path follower becomes crazy when you move the main layer. So I had to put the follower lines layer above the tiger bone layer, that's why there is a wrong frame (which I didn't noticed before, thanks ).
I would love to see a more complex follow path tool, free of this bug and with options like line width for animate the width of the follower and option to always scale up the follower to get the path length.

[cocoOS]

selguin no se si habrá problemas en que me robe "descaradamente" tu brazo animado para una animacion que estoy haciendo para un concurso al menos la idea...tranquilo...las probabilidades que gane son 1 de mil...aunque al menos va a tener un buen brazo animado

[prashna]

could you please suggest me something on how to use multiple flow paths for same object

i tried with two layers of paths but it keeps on following the 1st path (when i try to set to other path)
and then i put the paths in same layer without welding them
did the previous thing

and then i welded the paths and then the end became the next path

i think holding the frames would work but any suggestions

[highrise955]

I was hoping to use selgin's idea to create a conveyor belt system where the belt treads would follow the path/bones around the curved end sections. I would like to get each tread to bend around the curve instead of just staying flat. I can't seem to get it to work. Does anyone have any ideas or similar examples of this?

[hayasidist]

have you tried "bend layer" to follow path? (hold the alt key when you invoke the "follow path" tool)

[highrise955]

have you tried "bend layer" to follow path? (hold the alt key when you invoke the "follow path" tool)

Sure have. Unfortunately that twists the belt treads. I need them to follow the contour of the curve.

[hayasidist]

ok -- do you have a full set of belt treads for the "in view" part of the conveyor all laid out, including the ones that are "round the bend"? and are they all identical? (stuff on the conveyor doesn't count)

if so:
frame 1, all in their starting positions.
frame (whatever, say ..) 10, all treads moved one place round (easy for the "flat" segment; more work for the ones on the curve)
frame 11: cycle key frame back to frame 2
all linear interpolation.

Stuff on the conveyor, translate (linear interp) at the right speed...

[negroclarito]

Very good idea. So many applications.
Thank you for sharing