Squash and stretch

Help
1

Hi all! Here’s a new situation… I’ll preface by saying I already have a solution for this, but wondering what a possible RD solution could be.

I have a creature that has a bunch of small tentacles instead of a mouth (kinda like Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama).

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The client asked for the tentacles to “talk”, so I figured I’d have the tentacles contract (like a tongue), point forward, and vibrate. Essentially, Squash and rotate forward.

How could I Squash and Stretch a series of Markers like this?

Thank you!

2

No problem, set Translate Motion = Soft and tune the values.

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Translation can also be animated. When a hierarchy is scaled, Ragdoll will preserve the translation that happens as a result of it.

4 Likes
3

For extreme stretch you’ll notice the shapes will start to separate. There’s an alternative way to compute the Stiffness attributes called “Spring Type = Force”. Here’s what it looks like.

  • Left = Force
  • Right = Acceleration

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The downside of Force in general is that it isn’t as strong and would struggle to maintain a pose as well as Acceleration can. But for flappy things, and especially squashy things, it’ll perform better.

3 Likes
4

This is great! It does solve half of the issue. As long as the controls handle the Squash and Stretch by just moving the control, it’ll work.

Is it possible to change the scale of a Marker based on the how Relaxed or Contracted it is?

5

If they don’t, then you can record onto a separate pair of e.g. locators, and connect the different in position to any custom attribute driving the squash/stretch.

Do you mean the collision shape? No, collision shapes cannot deform.

1 Like