How to Create Swaying Camera Around Neck

Question

I have a bear character with a camera around his neck and would like have it sway realistically using when the bear moves from side to side. Here's my chracter, the current rigging set up, and the "Camera" layer contents.

In real life, the straps around his neck would form two anchor points. However, in rigging mode, there's only one anchor point for the camera layer. This produces a decent look on the left side, but nothing is happening on the right side. I tried adding a fixed point on the right strap at the neck and a second dangle, but that didn't help. I also tried moving the anchor point to the center and playing with the dangle parameters, but it only ever affects the left side of the camera and straps.

How can I make the camera sway when the character moves from side to side?

Amozza · Accepted Answer

Thanks for the suggestions.

The extra pins didn't work great, but I got a decent look by adding four dangle pins on the camera and moving the origin point higher up onto the face. I also set the gravity to 100%, cranked down the squishiness and increased the dampening. It's not quite perfect, but it's good enough for my purposes.

alank99101739 · Answer

Some suggestions to try as experiments. Not sure which (if any) will work. You are right - there is only one origin - layers generally have one parent, so you cannot attach a rope to two points (for example).

- Try putting a pin on the other strap at the top. Pins on independent layers I am pretty sure should pin it to the parent (the body in your case). However there is a basic principle of children having one parent so things don't work sometimes.

- Try putting a rectangle across the chest joining the tops of the two straps, then make that layer invisible. Anchor the middle of the rectangle to the center of the chest. Use weld (not hinge) to try and stop it moving. Also try a stick across the rectangle from side to side, just below the origin attache point. The idea is to try and stop the rectangle from moving, even though it has a single attachment point in the middle. Effectively we are trying to make it more like one bib rather than two straps, with a clear plastic area in the middle which you cannot see, then you can get away with only one anchor point.

- If invisible rectangle moves too much, try adding more pins on the left and right side as well.

If the camera swings, but bends too much, try a stick across the camera top so it does not bend, or join the two straps behind the camera and make the camera independent and attach to the strap. Remember also you can put more dangles or add a physics behavior with different gravity etc just on the "bib" layer to try and influence the degree of swing/bounce of the straps (bib) and camera.

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