Rigging tentacles in Maya 6 ?

[Phrenzy84]

in the current issue of 3d world Joe Harkins from Sony Imageworks has a 5 page (at least) tutorial on how to rig tentacled characters.

If your in teh US you will have to wait a month but if your in the UK then pop down to WHSmiths and get a copy.

[seven6ty]

Spline IK system, with perhaps a soft body conversion duplicate if you like.

[core35]

Thanks Phrenzy84, i 'll try to get 3dworld.. but is it the number 60 with incredibles on cover?
If someone has another idea :) ?

[ashishdantu]

Hi core35,

Weell, i would recomend using hair system for the tentacles, if your squid is more likely to be animated to be moving around and if not much he is to do like holding things etc..

Ya, u can have spline IK's for the tentacles and once u have all the spline IKs done, select them > Hair > Make Curves Dynamic and select all follices > restrict only at the base and then adjust the hair system attributes to suit the underwater movements ....

I feel, it will work quite well, if u need much fluidity, select the start curves and then resample curves to have more CVs and if u want lesser fluidity, resample them to less CVs. This worked for me goood...

I thing i like about this is, once u have done as above, and if u need to animate one tentacle to go around something, u can animate the CV's of that particular Start curve !

Though i aint clear as to how if required, how to setup a switch between the hair system and normal spline IKs.. something like u want to use hair system for 100 frames and then 110 frames , normal spline IKs, and then back to Hair !! ??

anyways, best of luck, n would like to see some playblasts if u can share,

rgds,

[core35]

Thanks ashishdantu,
Currently i'mtrying the ring of Joe harkins a this adress http://www.animationartist.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=19864
It's not very easy to understand but i'm on this way..
I think i'll try hair system to compare ..
the dificultie is the giant squid has to fight with a sperm whale !!
So i have to keep minimum control of the tentacles .
I'll post some blayblast later, when i 'll begun animation test !!

[enonogi]

If it is any help to you, animation of is octopus is described in book from Alias "Learning Maya 6 - Unlimited Features". I didnt read the book, but I know it is done with hair system.

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