Variable FK - trunk/tail/tentacle wtv

Hello,
I´ve just finished a rigging study based on Jeff Brodsky's trunk rig Maya technique and I´d like to share here not only the video but also my Softimage files for FREE to anyone whose interested into dig on trees/graphs and learn:



variable FK ICE files
(the .zip includes scenes+wips+compounds)

This kind of setup can be usefull for trunks/tail/tentacles and stuff like that..

Hope you like it,
sincerely.

Hey Renato,

Great work on translating Jeff's awesome setup! I made a version of it in MAX - see attachment

It's really interesting to see how each software has a completely different method of achieving similar results...

Cheers

Duncs

Hello,

Really interesting effect and thanks to both of you for publishing your results, it is very much appreciated!

-Harry

It is so cool for sure to see same results into different apps! I saw this one aswell: http://www.themichaelsmith.com/2013...-character.html

Anyways I dove into your .max and I must say it is working good! I´d like to suggest a few minor ajustments:

- Set each anim spline 2nd rotation euler controller weight to 100.0 and make another 3rd layer to "negate" its own value (avoid the double rot transform)

- Changing a spline (path constraint) to a surface (face constraint ie. follicle) might be a better idea to avoid rotation issues (twists and sides problems when hitting extreme poses).. ..my ICE setup need that aswell.. It will make your scene a bit cleaner too (you will get rid of extra look at constraints and points).

Hope that makes sense



No problem bro, hope you like it!

Hey Renato,

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. I'd like to reciprocate but I wouldn't know where to start with Softimage!

Quick question - how would you go about setting up a surface constraint in MAX? I've had some success using patch grids and patchdeform modifiers but I'm not aware of another method to constrain objects to a surface and be able to parametrically adjust their position...

Thanks again
Duncs

Quite depressing that 3dsmax 2014 still doesn´t have a fully working surface constraint like Maya/ /XSI don´t you think?

So I would go 100% as you´ve described, take a look in this link which is an update I´ve made on top of your file

VERY!! But what's even worse is that, originally I had the setup working exactly as you've done it in your update but, when I came to build the rig with script I found this in the help docs...



wtf...!

So because of that one omission, I had to go down the multiple splines / constraints route as I had loads of these rigs to build and I didn't want to have to manually go in and pick the patches for each one.

Anyway, thanks for the update - and the opportunity for a mini Friday afternoon rant

Hey, that's me!

Figured I'd post what I learned as well in doing this setup. I used a path constraint/spline solution as well in 3DSMax.

One advantage to this method is you get to use the move tool directly on the controllers in order to change position (as opposed to only using the slider values in panel, so the animator can rotate and move the controller without leaving the window). Are you guys seeing that too?

A disadvantage though is that you get gimbal "flipping" of the controller (you can see this happening in my demonstration video if you watch the colored axis rotate past 90 degrees, it only affects the ctrl and is not noticeable in the trunk).

One question I had for Jeff Brodsky is that it seems when he adjusts his "falloff" attribute, it seems to increase/decrease the total rotation of all the joints (whereas in mine, if I have a control rotated 45degrees it spreads that equally among the joints and never changes). When Jeff lower's his falloff to get a tighter pinch it looks like his total rotation also increases. I've been meaning to ask him about that.

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