Rigging a rope for animation

#1

Hi everyone!

Has anyone created a reusable bone rig for a rope that isn’t awful to animate with?

In my experience, people tend to rig ropes in two ways, either the whole thing is FK, which can work, but only for swinging ropes with a single anchor point, or they use a spline, which typically has a problem with the spline being infinitely stretchy, while the rope isn’t, and it ends up slithering awkwardly around one end.

Assuming physics isn’t an option, how do you wrangle one of these things?

Thanks!

#2

Why Doesn’t Spline IK with a bone chain (don’t allow the bones to stretch) work? Nevermind… I think the bones will separate (but not stretch) if the spline gets too crazy. Maybe use a Nurbs curve and and the SplineIK Control modifier? Or this:

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/spline-rope

#3

Thanks for the reply Archangel. For spline rigs, it depends on how you set them up. If it’s tied to a percentage of the spline, then the bones will separate and the rope will appear to lengthen. If they’re using a SplineIK system, then the spline only controls them indirectly, and you get nasty confusing snarls all over the place, especially while moving.