Spring IK query

maident

Hi, I'm in the midst of rigging and I got some advice for a creature's tail - in short, to use a Spring IK. The functionality should be independent of anything else except for the root control - in fact, the supposed desired outcome is that moving the creature would automagically animate the tail. However, I cannot get it to actually work that way, and am currently considering swapping it out for a Rotate-Plane Solver IK handle instead. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: Sorry, forgot to mention, but the program is Autodesk Maya (2015).

maident

Update: I have tried the Spring IK in both directions (up and down the tail) with no success. I'm not sure if I need to make expressions for it, or if I need to set driven keys, or if there's something else that I'm not doing right. Can anybody help please?

jfeez

I'm not sure if spring ik is the right thing to be using. If i was to rig up a tail to automatically move i would start with a spline ik solver, and set the spline ik's curve to be a nHair and build from there. You have to use interactive playback to see the simulation 

http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2014/en_us/index.html?url=files/StfH_Dynamic_spline_IK_chain_illustrated_using_a_butterfly_tail.htm,topicNumber=d30e537554

maident

Thank you for your help. Unfortunately, that is out of my scope - ndynamics are too expensive. I am swapping for a Rotate-Plane Solver IK and relying on manual animation, because the Spring IK is not giving me any desired functionality.