Joints and motion paths

[maraschino]

I have created a poly fish model and have an underlying joint skeleton which has been smooth binded to the skin, i have created a cv curve on which my fish will follow.

Now this is where i have had problems, if i attach it to the motion path without the aid of a constraint the model just flips and rotates randomly, so im guessing a constraint is the correct way on which to attach it to the path, i also would like to use a flow path so that my fish turns corners smoothly saving the effort of keyframing every joint but i cannot get the path to work with my constraint on it, it simply does not do anything when i try to assign it

[gmask]

Attaching to a motion path is trickier than it appears.

You can go about this two ways..

A: Create an up target object and use the option for object as the up target and then aniamte the object to correct for any funky motion.

B: I haven't tried this but I'm assuming it works.. create a ribbon shape for you path and create a curve do the middle of it.. now the attached object will follow the surface normal of the ribbon

[maraschino]

i can attach my fish to a path but i cannot use a flow path if i have joints... im using a locator to constrain to the normal motion curve....

[brendanjbond007]

my workaround in setting a fish is:

create a skeleton with its root join on the center of the fish from center to head and from center to tail, select the fish and create a latice, bind the latice to the joints, select the root and the last joint of the head, create a spline handle with only "root on curve" is checked, use the curve that would be the path of the fish as a spline curve, with out making the tail influenced by the spline you can control its motion as it move.

hope this helps.