Hands Constrained To Reins?

[mike-milo]

Hello all,
I am animating on a project where we have a guy riding a horse. This was not rigged by me by by a company in the Middle east who our compnay is no longer speaking to. Suffice it to say we are on a shoestring budget and the deadline is past. We're trying to fix the last few remaining shots and on in particular is troublesome.

The guy on the horse is moving across space and the camera is tracking him. The trouble is that no one rigged the reins and the hands do not stay attached to the reins. I am trying to constrain the hands to the reins so that they just stay attached to it. What is the best way to do this?

I tried Parent constraint but it does not make the hands stay attached to the reins. I also tried a geometry Constraint and constrained a poly sphere to the reins and then parented the wrist controller to the ball. That did not do it either. Both ways the hand sdo not stay attached as the character moves across time. I am stuck... Anyone out there know how to do this?

[joojaa]

Yes well parent constrain the ik handle to the reins.

[mike-milo]

Hey Joojaa!
thanks for the quick reply!
Nope that doesn't work. the hand still seperates from the rein. I need it to feel like he's holding it. Parenting the IK handle to the rein doesn't seem to do anything at all. What am I missing? Is there a way to parent specific verts of the hand to specific verts of the rein?

[underearth]

i assume four hand ctr must not have any animation... or just create a null grp over ur controller... and then
select the obj you want to constrain TO .. and the select the null grp or ur ctr.. then do parent constrain.. try maintain offset.....

you can also create a locator and make it a child of reins.. then you can also animate the locator.. to get some subtle animation..

[joojaa]

Without seeing the file its hard to say why it dont work. Maybe you have double trasform there somewhere, overlapping anim, DAG loop (wichis forbidden by the way), some driven key.

[onscreen]

rig the reins w spline ik chains w/ the root at teh hand and the joints going toward the bit. parent the root of the reins joint chain under the hand so the hands move the reins. constrain the controllers at the far end of the chain to the bit.

or put the root at the bit and constrain the end of chain controllers to the hand controllers.

or
use ye olde rivet scripte to create a a locator, parent constrain the hand controller to teh rivet locator and the reins will drive your hands

[mike-milo]

Thanks fellas! After digging deeper it seems that the studio did in fact add a null on the reins but it was hidden and buried pretty deep in the heirchy. So I am good! Thanks for the help!