Bendy arm rig setup?

[jmalaska]

I'm trying to get a bendy IK arm setup working in LT. All the tutorials on the net seem to use a spline IK setup, however that feature is not in LT.

Has anyone had luck getting a bendy IK arm working? I was hoping for a setup that was a little more automated in the mid-joint movements, rather than having an animator make the bends manually.

[3dMastermind]

Hello, rigging in LT can be tedious because it's designed to work best with an HIK rig.

Here are some tips:

You can try with a ribbon spine technique:

http://youtu.be/w5VTJxmYuj8

Since you're on LT, you can replace the Nhair ('follicle' sticking to the ribbon technique) he uses with the joints being "normal" constraint directly to the ribbon.

You can also try by sticking the single joints to a motion path>"Attach to motion path".

The curve can then be made more curvy (bendy) by editing the position of some CVs which could be automated with a custom attribute and "set driven key".

This would all require testing.

[jmalaska]

Thank you Manny! I'll give that a shot.