
So I have a character's tail that I thought would be a good chance to use a b-bone, which worked fine since it's effectively just a bendy tube. However, this particular character's tail *also* has ornamentation hanging off of it that I wanted to be able to control, both for the sake of matching the direction of gravity, but also to have it sway back and forth a little while animating.
However, my problem is that I can't figure out how to relate the jewelry b-bone controls to either the DEF tail spline or the control tail spline handles--if I parent the jewelry controls (or use the Child Of bone constraint) to relate the jewelry handles to the DEF spline curve, it only inherits rotation if I rotate the DEF bone itself, not the handles that control the curve. But if I parent the jewelry control handles to, say, the tail control handles, that's not going to inherit the location properly.
This was all just experimental for me, so if it ends up being a wash (or possible, but super tedious to implement), at least I learned something and I'll just go use a chain of normal bones instead. But if anyone knows how to set this up so that the jewelry bones inherit the interpolated rotation and position of the tail spline, I would very much appreciate learning how.
Tagging @waylow in case he has any ideas.
Thanks for your time!
Without seeing the actual file and fully understanding exactly the end goal....here's an idea for you DDrakmire
Get ready for a crude diagram - but I'm pretty sure you've done the RIG course so it should make sense.
You can probably add a MCH-Chain_parent bone, which has a NONE parent.
And then use an Armature constraint to make that follow the DEF-Tail.
The Chain controls can be parented to the MCH bone.
This will allow that chain segment to follow the DEF bone from that point it is positioned (in edit mode)
It should do what you want, however it's probably going to be a little difficult to animate, so you might also want to add a hinge mechanism to this and have the rotation actually follow what the tail is connected to (Torso or Hip control)
Hope this helps.