Making a bone chain follow a control point

[Flamingburrit008]

Hello. I've been working on trying to create a millipede rig lately, and while looking up references I came across this interesting video. 

https://youtu.be/3OxAw3WrCAs

One thing that I cannot seem to figure out from it, is how to have the body follow a single control point.  
Does anyone have any thoughts about how to accomplish something like this? Thank you.

Edited April 10, 2018 by Flamingburrit008

[StepbyStepVFX]

I think you’ll have to play with CHOPS : there are a lots of cool nodes there that can help you do that. Particularly the Lag node : you have a one point animation, and you apply increasing lag of the same channel to the successive points of your millipede.

And there is also a Limit node that could help you quantize (create steps) in your channel, so that you can animate automatically the legs (to make the steps for example, and then blend position of each foot between those steps, and move the foot in Y at the middle between two steps etc.).

CHOPs can become you friend in that project, if you overcome the learning curve :-)

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by StepbyStepVFX

[Flamingburrit008]

Thank you for the advice! Ill start experimenting with the lag node and see if I can get something working. I've actually been using chops a lot for this project (mainly for the leg movement). However, most of my work has been done with a bunch of channel wrangle nodes. Maybe I approached this in an bad way. Ill take a look at  the limit node to see if I can find a better solution.

 

Edited April 12, 2018 by Flamingburrit008

[Flamingburrit008]

Do you have any suggestions for creating an automatic walking cycle for a bumpy surface? I've managed to make the feet mimic the wave-like motion that millipedes walk in for flat surfaces. However I can't seem to find a good way to deform the walk-cycle along rougher terrain. I'm working with various deformers, but I keep running into a problem. The foot's motion deforms in an unwanted way while it is moving through the air and I only want it to deform while it is resting on the ground.

[StepbyStepVFX]

9 hours ago, Flamingburrit008 said:

Do you have any suggestions for creating an automatic walking cycle for a bumpy surface? I've managed to make the feet mimic the wave-like motion that millipedes walk in for flat surfaces. However I can't seem to find a good way to deform the walk-cycle along rougher terrain. I'm working with various deformers, but I keep running into a problem. The foot's motion deforms in an unwanted way while it is moving through the air and I only want it to deform while it is resting on the ground.

Take a look at this old tutorial, seems there is a nice example on how to make a simple bone system follow steps :

https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/procedural-rigs-controlling-motion-houdini-552

Edited April 29, 2018 by StepbyStepVFX