What actually would work better than the bone locking script would be spring physics. I am still working on that one. I've got "springs" I'm just having trouble making them not "stretch" to create chains.
Instead of using AS dynamics the two ends of the chain would be the lock points of a physics simulation. Those end bones could be children of other bones so they would move with the character.
I've been trying to get all my physics simulation code into one unified utility script for easier use with AS.
Now that I have learned how to save preference files and do this bone colorizing trick without needing special names for bones, I can apply the same concept to physics. Select bones, choose a type of physical property (gravity springs etc) and then run the animation.
I can see applying this "trick" to all of my scripts in the future. No need to give bones special names, just add them as a reference to an external file that is loaded with the anme file.
My bone locking script would probably not work with AS dynamics. I didn't really account for that. I don't like the dynamics in AS at all to be honest. I think too it would have the same issues of having a circular chain with a "top" bone and an "end" bone instead of two "ends".
-vern
-vern