Question about Maya Jiggle Deformers and Gravity

zacko9000

Hi guys,

I just had a quick question about Maya's jiggle deformers. I am working on a game and I need to have a puppies ears jiggle and react to gravity during its animations. I know I could create some bones and place them in the ears, but I like the effect that the jiggle deformers produce. The only problem is that I haven't been able to attach a gravity field to the jiggle and all the googling I have done hasn't really led me to a solution. I really don't know any MEL so custom scripting is probably out of the question for me. Anyways if anybody has any ideas I'd really appreciate hearing them.

Here is a pic of the model to help clarfiy the situation:

THNKR

jiggle does not respond to gravity. You can use a dynamic curve as a spline IK curve though. By constraining only the base of the curve, you can get the effect you're looking for.

zacko9000

Hey THINKR, thanks for the advice. I googled spline ik tutorial and found this : http://www.animationartist.com/2003/08_aug/tutorials/softbody_tutorial.htm.

From what I got, the spline ik method uses bones, but does your curve method require bones in the ears to work, or can I just select vertices and do something with a dynamic curve? Sorry if I sound stupid, but I have never done something like this before and am kind of lost. If you have time and feel really nice would you mind giving me a brief walkthrough of your method or a tutorial you think would help? If you dont have time or don't feel like it though it's no big deal and thanks again for the help.