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View Full Version : A posable dynamics setup for ears etc?

royg
09-12-2009, 02:25 AM
I'm trying to make a dynamic setup where it is still possible to pose over the top of the dynamics. This would be great for ears and things where they are quite expressive and need to be posed in a particular way, but the dynamics take care of the overlaps etc. I though I had it working, but have run into a few issues... Here's where I'm up to:

Create joint chain.
Add IK spline solver to chain (auto create curve).
Duplicate the curve.
Make this duplicated curve a dynamic hair.
Add the dynamic hair curve as a blendshape to the original IK spline curve.

So far so good.

Add some arbitrary joints (about four & not parented to each other) down the chain and skin the IK spline curve to these joints (these behave much like clusters).

Still so far so good.

Now parent it all up so that the dynamic curve receives movement from the rest of the rig. In the bind pose, it appears to work - I can pose the IK spline with the four control joints and also receive dynamics underneath the pose. The problem occurs when I actually animate the rig in any fashion. I now get double transforms on the joint chain, because the joints are receiving transform info from both the blendshape (the dynamic curve) and from the control joints (for posing). If I swap the deformation order between the blendshape and the skinning, I don't get double transforms, but the posing controls don't affect the IK spline curve at all - it's just the dynamics.

I hope that all made sense. Does anyone know of a workaround, a solution, or an albeit different way that you get a posable dynamics system for stuff like this? I'm going to go and try clusters on the original IK spline curve instead of skinning the curve to control joints and see if that makes any difference...
mlefevre
09-13-2009, 10:54 AM
Hi,

One way you could perhaps go about it, is to:

Create a joint chain,
Apply splineIK, (uncheck 'simplifyCurve' to avoid rotations on your joints)
Delete splineIK handle,
Select curve, goto Hair > Make Selected Curves Dynamic,
Apply splineIK using the dynamicCurve as the spline (under the OutputCurves group)
Duplicate joint chain,
Bind the original curve (Under the follicles group) to the new joint chain

Adjust 'start curve attract' & other options as you need, but you should be able to use the
new joint chain to drive the bound curve, which drives the dynamic curve.

Good luck!
royg
09-13-2009, 07:30 PM
That's a great solution - and one which I ended up discovering last night! I don't know why I got so obsessed with doing it with a blendshape... I guess for other deformers (sine, wave, etc) on duplicate curves and blendshaping those to an ikSpline chain works fine - but of course, they don't need to actually move from the origin.

Although that said, I'm still using a blendshape on the actual dynamic curve to blend between dynamics on or off.

Thanks a lot for your reply.
EightBit
09-13-2009, 09:41 PM
Does this work?
Seems like it would be difficult to add KF animation on top of dynamics, I would've guessed you'd add the dynamics on top of the keyframes and use a blendShape to control the amount of dynamics (and to turn them off while animating the character).
royg
09-13-2009, 10:27 PM
Yes, it works fine (see attached) - and you'll notice on the first of the FK controls there's an attr called "dynamic" with which you can turn the dynamics on or off.
EightBit
09-18-2009, 08:33 PM
Thanks A LOT, that is very helpful.
Great rig...
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