Hi,
I am struggling to do simple springy animation. Let’s say spring is hooked to the floor and is bending form left to right in bow shape.
Anyone knows how to do it? Simplest possible way.
This could be straightforward enough. Start with an armature with an IK-constraint on the end bone. Let the bones at the base be longer than those at the end. Now, why not have that bone, say, “Locked-Track To” an empty that is, in turn, parented to another empty located at the base of the spring. Keyframe the back-and-forth rotations of that empty at the base, which will cause the other empty to rock back and forth, which in turn will cause the armature to follow. (When keyframing, be sure to select all the bones.)
Now, as any tutorial (e.g. the “Screw” modifier") shows you how to do, create the spring and parent it to the armature, probably with auto-weights.
Be sure to vary the rotations … the speed of it (by adjusting the control-points on the curves), slight differences in how far it moves each time, and so on.
And then … go back and, with the Actions and Curves editors, fine-tune the effect.
You can convert each move (back, forth, back#2, forth#2, etc.) into NLA “actions” and string them together more-or-less at random, maybe fiddling a little with the “lead-in” and “lead-out” controls, to create a truly convincing effect … convincing because each time it is not quite the same.
There are other ways to do it. Physics sims … etc. Of course there are.
