Hi, I have a rig for a mantis, and for the abdomen specifically, I am not completely sure how to rig with a spline IK so that, when the primary abdomen control bone at the base of the thorax rotates, so does the spline IK bezier curve AND its hooks to keep it in a line straight thus allowing the hook controls to rotate and move relative to its offset from the abdomen control bone. Also, whenever I try to move the hooks, they act really weird.
mantis_praying I.blend (8.64 MB)
Okay, so I accidentally figured it out most of it, but not all of it. I just randomly decided to try the “child of” constraints on the empties again even though they didn’t work the first time, and it accomplished most of what I’m trying to do.
However, there is one last problem: For some reason, when I move the hook at the end of the abdomen, it doesn’t actually move the bone at the end of the abdomen like a normal IK constraint would, it only moves that bone in a weird way if I move the end-empty past the thorax bone, so it’s still possibly this is the completely wrong rig for what I’m trying to do. Does anyone know if there is a way to do a normal IK and a spline IK at the same time?
Take a look at the setup. You have IK and Spline IK on the same chain in the same armature. This is why the manual states they are difficult to control. Your IK chain takes precedence no matter what you want. Re rig it using a different method like two armatures.