Paid Work on a rigged belt

Hi all,
I am working with this belt (see also blend file attached) and would like to improve it a lot. It will a paid work.
https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=494644&d=1502556472&thumb=1

The belt is great for precise posing because it has many bones (256) but there is room for mistakes when posing
My question : can we build a UI that would allow me to “isolate” portions of the rig (bone n to bone n+x, say bone 100 to 150 for instance) and work on that portion only without affecting the LocRotScale of the remaining bones (1 to 100 and 151 to 256). And in a perfect world, it would be nice to be able to work on FK or IK and snap FK–>IK and IK–>FK on that isolated portion.

I have tried Spline IK but I need lots of bones, posing is not that easy and this belt is more precise and gives more natural results.
Thank you guys for your advices and help
BeltRig_v005OK - copie.blend (1020 KB)

Is this a PAID job ? Otherwise you posted in the wrong thread.

Yes it’s a paid job
Should have mentionned it clearly sorry.

I recall on one 3D World magazine an article on how to do chain with Blender armature.

Have you already tried “Auto IK” feature? (enable AutoIK in the toolshelf, and then translate some bone. Shift+Wheel changes IK chain length). Usually it works for such things like belts, tails, tentacles, and so on. Yes, of course you can create a script that will select a chain of bones (i.e. between selected two bones, or by numeric index), but it would be a hell to work with such a rig.

Hi mechanic.,
yes I have tried but it doesn’t work. You can try if you have time with the Blender file attached to my first message.
I don’t know why it doesn’t work. Maybe because the rig is made of B-bones?
Any advice is welcome.
Thank you.
PS it is already a hell to pose !

Hi Gilles38;

I need to point out that a way to pose this belt to yield natural looking results doesn’t really depend on being able to control every tiny bit individually across its length. You’ll always need lesser control objects than the overall number of bones. There are many ways to tackle the rigging of this belt and it merely depends on the scenario; Is it going to just sit there or is it to be rigged so as to have a character put it on his pants and etc.

Hi jacobo,

here are 2 examples. Tell me what you think. I am a yoga teacher and I use 3D to illustrate poses so any advice is welcome.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]496550[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]496551[/ATTACH]

Then my advice would be to use the spline deformer. You can add as many points onto the spline where needed to maintain extra detail and you can control the twisting via those points as well.

If it’s an animation, you have to rig and pose the belt (spline modifier as was said by jacobo above, or I’d think about some cloth simulation as well). And if those images are stills, I think it’s much easier to model the belt on top of already posed model. it’s very simple mesh from a single plane (assuming solidify modifier). so just extract, rotate and move, and you’ll get needed belt very soon and easy.

And, about AutoIK - it does work indeed. See the

:wink:
Again, it works with translations (G) of the bone, but not with rotations. Sad, but it’s better to be aware of.

Hello,
mechanic and jacobo,
If I understand correctly you would use a spline IK modifier to rig the belt. I have tried that in the past but there were two few bones (20) to control precisely posing. In my opinion, I would need at least 100 bones along the belt to make sure I have enough bones. Still I would be afraid that the final result is not so nice because my previous spline IK was looking more like an “elastic” belt mainly because bones in the straight parts are hard to align to make a nice straight line. But maybe I didn’t know how to use properly a spline IK.
The belt will be animated soon or later.

mechanic, thank you a lot for your video, indeed I never tried G instead of R. It works.
One question, can I also determine how far the Grab goes along the bone chain length ?

All in all, Spline Ik with lots of bones is what I would prefer I think

Moderator note: I’ve recently deleted a series of posts from this thread. Please limit posts in this forum to inquiry and applications only. If you’re actually working on the job, please continue your communication via PM or email.