Looped Parenting Capability

Mage 13X13

Sometime there are thing that need to have multiple joints that form a continuous loop. At present I've not seen this type of system in any application. Where this could be useful is in things like tracked vehicles, bicycles, etc.  A looped chain could have multiple links anby using looped parenting it would become a closed loop that could then be realistically animated.

Richard Haseltine

You might be able to have the last link point at a sibling of the first - it would be a slightly odd rig as you'd need a dummy root bone, I think, but it's a technique that has been used successfully for things like pistons.

Etrigan

Richard, could you elaborate (especially your reference to "a sibling"). I'm not looking to loop something as much as parent to two separate objects (i.e. a power cable from generator to weapon.

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The power cable from pack to gun is parented to the gun. Each time I pose the figure I must futz with the cabling.

Suggestions?

kaotkbliss

It would be pretty cool to be able to pin or parent each end of a cable/wire/rope/chain/etc. to another object, then be able to grab a bone/section/link and drag to easily create a U shape how you want it.

Kind of like taping 2 end of a string on a table, then putting your finger on a section anywhere in between and moving the string around.

Richard Haseltine

Etrigan said:

Richard, could you elaborate (especially your reference to "a sibling"). I'm not looking to loop something as much as parent to two separate objects (i.e. a power cable from generator to weapon.

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The power cable from pack to gun is parented to the gun. Each time I pose the figure I must futz with the cabling.

Suggestions?

I was thinking you'd perhaps be able to do it with a root node, a bone, with two children - one a single link, the other the first of a chain of links each parented to the next. Then you'd use Point At to get the end of the chain to point at the single link. However, pointing at is not the same as attaching and I'm not sure this would work - just suggesting it as an avenue to explore. In this case, however, you'd have a figure for the cable and point it at the attachment (which should be its own bone) on one of the items you wanted to link - though again, it's a tentative suggestion rather than soemthing I know would work.