CGTalk - creating even spacing for bird wings

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mrSnoogle

11-19-2008, 05:27 AM

hey there...
I am rigging a birds wings and am having trouble keeping the feathers evenly spaced when the arms spread out. There are 3 arm bones with mulitiple bones coming off them which the feather geometry is bound to. I have tried driven keys but this still leaves unwanted gaps (as shown in the picture) when other axis's apart from rotateZ are used.

Does anyone happen to know of a way that the rotation of these bones can be automated so that their spacing stays even regardless of the arm rotations.

...many thanks :)

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/8274/birdwingscgtalkcn001ie3.th.jpg (http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=birdwingscgtalkcn001ie3.jpg)http://img444.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

djx

11-19-2008, 01:20 PM

This is not a complete solution, but something you may want to consider.
Weighted constraints between two (or more) control joints will keep the inbetween joints evenly spaced.

The attached file contains 5 joints. Joints A, B and C are parent-constrained to both the start joint and the end joint.

A is weighted 1 to start and 0.33 to end.
B is evenly weighted to both start and end.
C is weighted 0.33 to start and 1 to end.

This weighting spaces them evenly.

Obviously your wing would be more complex (and the math will be harder), but the same method might work for you.

-- David

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