How to animate a path with bones?

[mmmaarten]

Hi,

I have a curly path which I want to animate with another curve movement up and down.
Because a bone layer doesn't seem to affect the underlying curve I decided to animate the vertices/points of these curve paths.

But I'm trying to do this for a lot of hours now and it's a plain dissaster to animate. For example when moving vertex up or down it's rotating, which is not wanted and destroys the curve alltogether again and again. Besides this there are visible artifacts of triangles in the image I am deforming with the path.

While the only thing I want is to move the paths I already have up and down with a curved motion; so I want to animate the path with either another path or (and preferrably) by bones.

How can we deform a path using bones?

And if that's really impossible; how can we move path vertices/points while moving its handles the same amount, so they stay together (I tried the built in tool to move points, the magnetic tool and the external script Curve Tool 3. But none of them seem to be able to just move the points up or down together with its handles (so that these points don't rotate while moveing the vertex) - (please without the need to constantly select the select points tool rectangle selection!!)?

Hope this makes sense!

tbh I'm at the point now that I am beginning to think that animating path deforms is basically impossible when wanting to just deform a curled path with keyframes. So I hope there's a way to do this without all this extreme hastle and lots of frustration because of the curls constantly changing by moving a point and all the artifacts.

Thanks in advance!

[Greenlaw]

It sounds like you're using Bezier points which isn't typically recommended for deforming shapes. If that's the case, I would try resetting the points back to regular Moho points (and making the point and curvature adjustments needed to get the same shape,) and deforming this version of the drawing. (Tip: when I draw curves for bones deformation, I keep the Bezier Handles hidden so I don't accidentally activate Bezier mode. I only show them when I'm sure I want them, and this is typically for non-deforming (by bones) items.)

Also, you need to be sure the vector drawing has enough points spaced appropriately to support the intended deformation.

This is normally what I suggest for deforming with Bones but this also apply when deforming vector paths using curves.

That's my best general advice. If you can post an example of what you're trying to do, I might be able to offer more specific advice.

[mmmaarten]

Hi Greenlaw,

Thanks for your response and sorry for the late reply

It sounds like you're using Bezier points which isn't typically recommended for deforming shapes.

I'm drawing all curves with MR Curve Tool. Which I love as it saves the day because it gives intuitive control while drawing, exactly like I'm used to and how it works in other major vector programs. I'd rather not move away from beziers unless there really is no other way to do so.

Thank god that wasn't needed in this case, 'cause I know what caused the problem now; it was a hierarchy issue. Causing both the path as well as the image following/dorforming along the path to be deformed. Which caused unwanted/weird distortions.

So it's working as expected now! Everyday you learn something new!