Add a rigify type "Spline IK"
(See pxy-gnomes' comment to understand why I edited it to place it as "Archived")
Hello,
After spending years learning to create a rig from scratch without using addons like Rigify, I started to learn Rigify and am really satisfied with it. Though, there is one thing that I need to create myself from scratch and add as "Basic Super Copy" in the Rigify's metarig, and this is a Spline IK.
I need it especially because I noticed there's nothing better for animating a long tail (like a dragon or a kobold tail) (and I already tried the 4 kind of "chain" samples, but they're not as good in my opinion), so this is what I use.
I'm definitely convinced there should be a way to make possible the generation of this specific kind of rig type in Rigify, and this would be really useful, not only for me but for people who'd like to give it a try and compare the utility of the Spline IK.
Thanks for your attention and for everyone upvoting that suggestion / idea.
7 Comments
Actually, there is the free Feature Set, for Rigify Addon, called Experimental Rigs by Alexander Gavrilov, which already offers a Spline IK Rig Type; something "tentacle" named indeed.
You can find that Feature Set listed here in Blender Manual: docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/rigging/rigify/feature_sets.html
Here's a CGDive tutorial that I've learned this from: youtu.be/hyjBCb8TbFQ
And here I've made this tutorial that shows how it can work for a specific case —just don't mind my workflow at that time because I had no idea how to use the Re-Generated Rig feature in a Rigify workflow (it would have helped a lot), and I'm yet to become a Rigify Addon expert: youtube.com/watch
Oh yes! YES! Thank you SO much! This is exactly what I was searching for! =O It works perfectly. I ignored you could add presets like this to Rigify. This is so perfect! It will be really useful for me.
Really nice feature; right? You're welcome. I have all those 3 Feature Sets shown in Blender Manual installed just in case; CloudRig Feature Set is also very interesting, I recommend to take a closer look at it (I'm particularly attracted to Sintel Human Meta Rig for the Bendy Bones Face Rig features (it probably has got something to do with "Cage Rig"). There is this presentation from Dzadik, the author; but it is more generic: youtu.be/f6im_0QVeuo
I can't check it right now, but isn't the "tentacle" rig type using spline IK?
But if not, I reckon the best way to make this proposal reality is to make a functional custom rig type and send it as a PR on blender-addons/rigify at Blender Projects so that the Rigify addon's devs just have to pick it up.
No. On the contrary of the Spline IK, it stretches the bones and it doesn't allow to generate a smooth curved chain on bones.
Normally, with the Spline IK, you can control, for example, a curve with 5 controllers moving smoothly a chain of 30 bones. With the tentacles rig type, you have one controller per bone which stretch the bones and one more controller per bone who just rotate the bone and the bones after. Which mean in my example of the chain of 30 bones that you would have 60 controllers.
The closest Rigify sample to get something similar to the Spline IK is the "skin.stretchy.chain". But it is clearly inferior of what a Spline IK can do and it still stretches the bones. Plus, you can have only 3 main controllers. There is a technic (used by default for the mouth in Rigify) to get more than 3 main controllers, but if you use that technic for a long tail, you can't get a smooth curve any more. There would always be a peak after each 2 or 3 controllers.
So, whatever sample you can use, nothing in Rigify is as good as a hand-made Spline IK for the moment if you need to rig a long tail.
However, I think I just get what you meant with the link you shared. I saw there is a tab to add a request in there. Maybe it would be more useful that I ask to add this sample in here. I'll send a message tomorrow. Thanks for the link. ^^
The Pull Request (PR) tab isn't to make feature requests. It is to send code to be merged into Blender.
You can create rig types presets in Blender, hence I mentioned, if you or someone in the community is able to build a spline IK rig type, they could literally send it as a PR. If the developers deem it to be accurately constructed, they might include it in the official release.