SFM Rigging, IK, and snake/worm models.

[Astute]

I'm currently updating a number of assets for some prop packs I want to release, and I have a large snake model I would like to port into SFM. I've used it before with SFM, but it has a large number of bones defining the different segments in its tail(38 bones, he's huge). I painstakingly posed it before, but I'm thinking that, if I release this giant snake, people won't really enjoy posing 20+ tail bones.

To my knowledge, there are no IK splines in SFM, so posing long strings of bones(ropes, worms, snakes, etc) is a bit of a hassle. Is there any way I might juke the IK system to simulate this?

Actually, does anyone have a better solution for managing these types of models?

[Pte Jack]

Not sure why you're having such a hard time posing your snake, this thing has a tail of 66 bones and it's quite easy to pose.

https://youtu.be/wEjuv9687BE

Select a chain, switch the rotation mode to local and the bones will deform as in a FK rig.

[Astute]

Yeah, that's how I was posing it before, but I simply don't feel like it's as user friendly as an IK rig. I could simply release it as is, but I want to make sure that it's quick and easy to use right out of the box. I guess I want a snake that's poseable like the TF2 team.

Actually, after doing a bit more research, I may be able to write a script to setup chains of IKs in a spline pattern. I'll try prototyping that a bit.

[Jonah Lazer]

can you link the model download? i cant seem to find it.