Help with Animating a Leech-like Creature on a Parent Character’s Deforming Surface

Support Animation and Rigging
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1

Hi everyone,

I’m working on an animation where I need to animate a leech-like creature (a rigged child character) moving along the surface of another rigged and animated parent character. The parent characters is humanoid with armature setups.

Ideally, I want the leech creature to move along the parent’s deforming mesh (for example, as the parent’s body or hands shift or fold), so that it remains in the correct relative position to the parent’s movements. The creature should appear to stick to the surface and follow the deformations seamlessly.

I’ve tried creating a curve on the parent’s surface and having the creature follow it, but when the parent deforms, the curve becomes distorted, and the movement no longer works as intended.

Is there a way to parent or constrain the creature to the parent’s deforming mesh so that it stays in place and moves correctly with the parent’s changes? Any advice or solutions would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you so much for your time and help!

2

Perhaps the shrinkwrap bone constraint. Im not sure how well it will work across an entire deforming body but it’s the first thing i thought of

3

if you playing with curve, make sure the curve was parent into rig-char to keep deformation moving properly. or you can drop image for your problem here

4

Hi @Aan_Whiskey

Thank you your reply! Can you elaborate on how to Parent a Curve to a Rig please as I do not know of any way to Deform A curve along a Armature Rigged surface.

5

Hi @KamauKianjahe , Thank a lot for your suggestion. I was familiar with the Shrinkwrap Modifier, but I wasn’t aware of the bone constraint version. However, I’m still facing an issue where the child object doesn’t follow the parent as expected. The deformation doesn’t translate into motion for the child object. Any suggestions for dealing with this would be greatly appreciated.

I’ve considered parenting, but since the parent mesh is complex and rigged, the child object needs to follow the surface of the parent and move relative to the dynamic, deforming surface, rather than being attached to a specific bone or vertex.