How to build a Spider Web Rig

#1

I am currently working on building a spider web rig. As simple of a rig as it might seem, I’m having trouble figuring out the general construction of one.

I like what this guy did at http://vimeo.com/33836729

It would need to have dynamic curves that get pulled down by gravity. I would need to be able to not only move individual intersections, yet also move whole sections of the web.

All suggestions and help appreciated.

Here is a screen shot of one strand I made. I have created a dynamic hair curve. I then create a joint chain. I then make an IK spline handle using the joint chain and dynamic curve. I then applied cylinder geometry to the joint chain. When I turn on dynamic interactive playback. Gravity pulls the dynamic curve down, the joint chain and the smooth binded geo. I have also attached clusters to the curve and can move verts with them.

So can this be done to each strand of the web?

I seem to have trouble at one end. Though the dynamic curve bends and lengthens, the joints and geo do not. So there is a gap at one end of the curve. Can’t figure how to fix this.

#2

Try using the curvs as motion paths for the joints rather than an IK spline. Remove the animation keys that automatically generate and adjust the percentage along the curve each joint sits. The joints should move with the curv as it expands and contracts since they’re staying at specific percentage points along the total length of the curv.

#3

To fix the scaling issues, try connecting the curve to a curveInfo node. Then connect the node’s arclen attribute to a multiply divide node. Set the multiply divide node to divide the arclen-connected attribute by the original, resting length of the curve. Finally, connect the output of the multiply divide node to the scale of the joints.

#4

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