CGTalk - Horse toy rig

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goosh

04-17-2003, 05:03 AM

Hi all

I was wondering if anybody has any ideas on how to rig one of those little animal toys which are attached with a string, and have a base, and when the base is pushed up, they collapse.

I hope you know what I'm talking about, I don't have a clue what the name of those toys is.

Any ideas?

My problem is basically on the legs. I can't use simple IK 'cause when they collapse they can collapse in any direction, and IK only lets me fall follow one plane, and even then, it's not the right motion.

Spline IK works pretty well, specially when the model moves side ways on back and forward, but when it moves down to collapse it's not good 'cause the feel go through the base and I can't lock them (because of the spline)

I thought the best way would be do have all the objects separate and just animate them fully FK, but it's a little bit inefficient.

Anybody has any good ideas?

If you don't know what the toy looks like or what I'm talking about, I'll draw one, scan it and post it.

Thanks for the help

Goosh

18th_Devil

04-17-2003, 06:00 AM

hey goosh its harry from vfs

just an idea but how about rigging it up like the horse in toy story 2.

eek

04-17-2003, 10:27 AM

Hi Goosh,

Seems like you reading my mind, I made an entire short film about a same type of toy but it was a dog, where you push the base and they collapse. We spent about 3-4 months working on ideas for the setup but nothing seemed to work,fk's too precise as the toy collaspes choatically. We basically used fk in the end, and linked the strings via clusters to locators, which inevent controlled the pieces.

Fk, was the most stable thing also, you could put a subtle level of character , and emotion in the toy.

eek

nottoshabi

04-17-2003, 07:18 PM

Hey guyz. I have an idea its a long shot but it might work. Use gravity and make the individual pieces rigid and give them the ability to colide, use fk if they start to fall out of place. Also you can play with the gravity and the mass of the geometry for the weight and the speed it falls. That would be the first thing I will try, if that dosent work then go to plan B- totally FK eeuuhhhh. I would not even try rigging it cause the movement is totaly unpridictable. To me they never fell the same way twice.

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