Creating a cable control

[Anonymous]

Hi Folks,

The basic set up - I have a cable coming from the ceiling and connecting into a helmet, (there will be at least one either side). I was advised to use an IK spline handle to control this, but I need the helmet to act as the main parent/driver for the movement of the cable like a regular IK Handle would; one point moves the whole chain. The issue is the IK Spline creates Control Vertex's that move independently (unless I'm using it wrong).

Ideally, the chain would move like an IK Handle, just with a spline controlling the movement. I've seen a tutorial using ndynamics/hair. This seems a little complex; I'm working on an animation for university and need to keep it simple as I have a lot to do on top of this.

Any ideas on creating this rig?

Thanks folks!

[jmreinhart · Accepted solution]

A setup like this may work for you.

[Anonymous]

Hey, thanks for the quick reply!

That works well, and it's nice and clean - I eventually went with a similar rig (before you sent this) but it's not as advanced.

I decided to drop the IK Spline in favour of simply using an IK.

I gave it a simple pole vector, attached the cable end into the helmet and parented it to the head joint. It works fine, but unlike yours wont stretch with movement, which may be detrimental but I can easily work around it without stretching the limits too far. I'm really new to rigging, so your rig looks really different to me! What are the additional chains? I noticed additional bones just above, and in the middle of the rig (joints 11/12/13). I'd love to know what method/style this is and how it works? Are you using an IK Spline?