Snake motion

[RobinOberg]

fish moves very similar to snakes
http://www.digitalproducer.com/pages/photorealistic_fish_2.htm

[Eugeny]

Not so similar but thanx for tutorial :thumbsup:

[Facial Deluxe]

I had the same probs as you, wanted to animate a chinese dragon (snake shape) I asked to Mike RB and he very gently send me this rig, using folower. That way only the first bone is animated and the others are following with a natural decay.
http://www.3dluvr.com/blackbourn/web/dragon_example.zip

Thanx again to Mike RB

Hope this help...

[Eugeny]

Thanx a lot Deluxe :) And Mike.

I come with exactly the same set-up but with 20 bones, but this not so good for me.
So after staking with IK setup i changed the bones to muscles using technique described by guys from LWhub.com - but drawing expression for all bones was really pain process (lightwave was crash after each successful assigning of expression), so decide to use the muscle script from the same site. Surprisely its work like charm but with one problem - if u load the scene on another machine Lightwave cant initialize this script so u need run this script via Lscript R/T or reassign Muscle modifier (script) for each muscle bone.
Anyway the rig work without mescals - just keep an eye on this.
Thanx.
Eugeny.

[Facial Deluxe]

Errr Eugeny,
This is far from what I can achieve.... I'm impressed by your technique.
I've seen Mike using Muscle bones on an arm bulging, and that I understood. But why did you need this for your snake. Why a simple follower didn't do the trick ?
Could you be more explicit for simple people as me ?

This snake moves beautifully, big big congrats.

[barryria]

i have played the snake too, it's great!!!

but i am simple people too, i need to study more for the mechanism

facial deluxe, the link u provided seems not work, i want to study as well.

u guys are very great!

i am thinking how can u make a snake motion by using IK intelligence other than morphed bone, serpant.

[Facial Deluxe]

Try again, I've just redownloaded it !

And forget about serpent plug, mostly unusable !

[Eugeny]

:) tanx Deluxe.
As u see i draw some expression for each Muscle controller and control bone.
This expressions do exactly the same as follower can do. Unfortunately i found follower have some bugs, and with muscle expressions LightWave just falling to crash.
So i have one Controller null for the snake (wave) motion. Now i work on expression what can connect frequency and amplitude of controller to speed and movement of the snake.
I prefer muscle rig because i need more sharp waves of snake and simple IK rig give me too smooth wave.
The advantage of this rig is what i can easy control snake motion and motion of his head. And disadvantage of this rig - its good only for motion, with this rig snake cant do something like torus (ring). For that motion i need simple FK rig with one controller bone and follower (with some time lag), but its OK, hopefully the story board allow me to use different rigs for different scenes.
Hope this was pretty clear to understand. ;)

P.S. The funny think what this rig work great without muscle plug
:D

[Nebelis]

Your English is getting better Eugeny:thumbsup:

[Facial Deluxe]

I see...
When oh when will Newtek implement a correct curve deformation tool in layout ?

[Eugeny]

... or ffd cage like in Max or Cinema. Ah.:cry:

[barryria]

do u guys think that nurbs modelling is the quickest method for accurate round shape objects?

but lightwave miss this kind of things...

[Eugeny]

My apinion that NURBS modelling is allmost dead for characters and ather stuff - subdiv is the better solution, combined from the best of polygones and best from NURBS.

[CIM]

Try to use an expression like Project:Messiah's InheritRoot. It basically make all the bones in the chain follow the specified channel (e.g., you rotate the bone on the heading; the chain follows on the heading). It also lets you control lag and curl.

Too bad LW doesn't come close to the power/ease of use of Project:Messiah. Wish they would--be great to work right in LW. Oh well.

[RobinOberg]

Originally posted by Eugeny
My apinion that NURBS modelling is allmost dead for characters and ather stuff - subdiv is the better solution, combined from the best of polygones and best from NURBS.

subdivision doesnt have anything to do with nurbs...
but i agree that nurbs modelling is almost dead.
its great for sharp edges and mechanical objects though.

These two guys would probably not like it if i said that nurbs modelling is dead, its their only way of modelling:
http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?Form.SortOrder=UserName&Start=37&Artist=Teyon&ByArtist=Yes
http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=EricClaeys

[Eugeny]

CIM - i tried to something u describe and this not so gud for snake motion, but this good for ather movements like snake rings and ather. I tried lot of mathematical formulas with some time lag and even exponentioal ez out on sine like curve - its just not vorking. I'm sure that can be some mathematical method of description for "snake wave" motion. Unfortunately my skills of algebra ends on tregonometry :). So i found combination of IK abd muscles more useful. If i have some REAL deform tools in Layaut all this expreesion mess was be usless. The integration of Modeller and Layaut - that what i want to see in the LW 8!

RobinOberg - The NURBS is Non Uniform Rational B-Splines. The B-Splines is splines controlled by control points - CV, so nurbs surfaces controled by CV points. The Subdivision surface controled by exucly same way- poly cage - the differnce is mathematical formulas behind these methods.

Bdw. guys sorry for my english :)

[RobinOberg]

subdivisioning is just a way to smooth out regular polygon models, its not a way of modelling. nurbs can be described as a way of modelling, as can polygons. i mean, you can use nurbs to model a head and you can use polygons to model a head but you cant use subdivisioning to model a head(cause the head is already modelled with either polygons or nurbs). subdivision does the same as the "smoothing" checkbox in the material settings, but you dont use that for modelling either :)

i dont know, perhaps im just being petty, but this is how i see it anyway...

[Eugeny]

In this way u right :beer:

[Jacko Cohen]

subdivision does the same as the "smoothing" checkbox in the material settings, but you dont use that for modelling either
huh? :surprised
so you're saying that subdivision modelling isn't modelling?
what? what?

subdivision modelling crerates new polys based on the polygon cages. Same as NURBS creates polys out of the NURBS. (every object is rendered as polygons in the end).

smoothing only tells the renderer how to color the polygons. It does not change or create new geometry.

in other words:
creating polygons == modelling
coloring polygons != modelling

[Eugeny]

Ahla atar - Kosher Pig :)

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