Cartoon bending for arms and legs
Curves. Animators love curves. So why do we offer just those rigid limbs to our characters? Let's make them bend with a smooth curve, to help the sensation of fluidity in their movements!
How to do it...
Open the file
005-Bending.blend. It has our character model nearly completely rigged, with all the principles covered until now applied, such as IK-FK switchers and hinged shoulders. But Otto is asking for some "bendiness": that's why we also have an interface slider set up (you know, just a bone to act as a driver).
Each limb has three bone chains: one for IK, another for FK, and one for the deformation. Lets pick, for instance, the left lower arm. The three bones which compound it are
IK_LowerArm.L,FK_LowerArm.L, andD_LowerArm.L. The deformation bones have two Stretch To and two Copy Rotation constraints each: one of each pointing to the IK bone and the others to the IK one. Their influences are driven by a bone, with opposite values: when the IK gets 1...
