IK Rigging: How to rig a single canon with two cables originating from 2 points

Support Animation and Rigging
#1

Hi everyone,

I’m fairly new to blender rigging subtleties, so I may have overlooked something in my searches for a solution to my issue, my apologies if that is the case.

Here’s my conandrum: I have a canon mounted on a single rotating mount (single axis), from which two cable go to two seperate points on my model.

Blender_CanonRig_1.jpg2300×1127 154 KB

The idea is that by rotating / moving the canon, the two cables should behave accordingly. I tried to use the Inverse Kinematics for this, as it seems to be the easier way to do it, however, given that it’s impossible for a single bone to have two parents (canon => two cable origins), I had to reverse the bones direction, and try it differently… but of cours, now the inverse kinematics don’t work as intended when moving the canon (given it’s two IK constraints at the cables’ origin points).

I have tried to use two entirely separate bone hierarchies, but I don’t know how I can bind the two “canon” bones so that the move conjointly.

Any ideas how to approach this?

Thanks in advance !

#2

Welcome to Blender Artists!

I would not do it this way…

Make your cables by using a Bezier curve for their path, with a Bezier circle as the “Bevel” object - that creates a nice cable. then add two or more Hook modifiers to the cable vertices with the cannon body as the target object - that way when you move the cannon body, the cables follow and maintain a nice curved look.

Cheers, Clock.

#3

Hi clockmender, and thanks a lot for your answer :slight_smile:

I forgot to mention one crucial element: this is a model/rig that is to be used ingame (in Unity). So the effect is to actually be achieved outside of Blender’s own animation system, dynamically :stuck_out_tongue: