i am rigging up a chair and i am wondering how i should rig the back so i can get complete control of it.
so it will flow when it bends any direction
the chair has 7 posts running up the back of it
i was thinking maybe lattices?
im not too sure
or joints on each individual bit of wood on the back, rather than one back bone for all?
any advice would be great, thanks
the chairs back is very similar to this chair
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It really depends how you need to animate. I mean chairs normally do not bend so it's probably some kind of a whacky thing. And there is no standard or common way for whacky things 
Take a look at this new Spline IK stuff. Havent worked with it yet, but what I have seen looked very promising towards your project...
i just want the back to bend flowingly
at the moment i have it rigged so that it bends, but it folds in the middle and looks no good
i want to make it smoother
what about a bend modifier or something? or would bones be the way to go
If you just vant it to bend then use bend deformer ( modifier? - coming from max eh? )
Bars should be densely subdivided verticaly so they can bend nicely.
yeah the bend deformer,
i havent used deformers for animating
so just wondering its possibilities
do you mean subdivide as in polys?
i guess i will just have to play around with it and see what i can achieve
i was hoping to get it to like bend as the back of the chair was like a persons chest
and the top corners were the shouders
I mean 'subdivide' as enough vertices to deform nicely