Could someone please suggest how one might make a ‘snake’ coil up and down a pillar, in such a way that it loops? It never has to approach the pillar, it’s just THERE, coiling up and down it.
In some software you could do a funky mix of morphing (blending) and a bone chain to accomplish such a trick: does Blender have equivalent trickery?
Thanks!
One way is to use a curve as a path and a curve modifier for the snake, like this:
Then you just have to setup the curve so it loops.
Here’s the blend file.
snake_pillar.blend (803.7 KB)
That looks MUCH easier than the LW-bonechain method!!! Thanks man!
Yes, it is much easier as most of the things.
(you may have noticed my continuing struggle with getting this from Blender to Unity. I was gratified to see that MDD is supported in Blender (NewTek repreSENT!) but there’s problems further down the line, in Unity.)(At least, w/o spending money.)
Yes, If you want to go to a game engine bones is the best solution for deforming objects. Alembic and mdd etc are not used much, as far as I know. It was actually harder than I thought to get a bone chain to follow a curve in Blender.
I also recommend to use Alembic instead of the old mdd file format. You gonna find more support for Alembic than mdd and also you only need one file instead of two in mdd.
No kidding: this is disappointing consider the dead-easy “mesh follows Curve” workflow. 
::sigh:: I’m really tired of learning things.
Alembic doesn’t support point-level-animation though, correct?
Yes it does, that’s what it’s made for.
Yes, absolutely. I found a solution that is ok-ish. I’ll try to get something together that I can share later.
I put the solution here:
https://blenderartists.org/t/when-exporting-animation-via-modifier-is-it-necessary-to-bake-the-motion-unity-sample-attached/1300222/8
Thanks ever so much! 
(Split topics, so confusing, my bad!)
Excellent thinking there. It seems like a weird oversight by Blender devs to not include a more straight-forward methodology (they’re SO close), but there it is.
Ztreem, you’ve answered a LOT of people’s question, if my research into this one means anything, so good on ya mate!