How to animate a puppet

Mosk the Scribe

I'd like to make a simple marionette like puppet for an animation.
Any recommendations on how to do this in C8.1 Pro or the 8.5 beta?

I'm envisioning a very low poly vertex model for the torso, and was thinking about connecting limbs by a soft body cylinder / string so limbs can bounce like a wooden puppet.

Would it make sense to apply physics to the limbs and move the torso to generate jiggly movements?

Is there a simpler way that might give similar effect?

I also have After Effects available so I could simply do this in 2D - but think it would look cooler if I could get it to work in Carrara.

Thanks

WendyLuvsCatz

bone a vertex cylinder add ball joint ik and get one end to track the limb, the other the controller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4grkmPgjNQQ the soldiers pulling up the cross have ropes done this way

PhilW

I think you may be making life difficult for yourself by looking at soft body and physics as a solution to this - but if you want to give it a try, hey, good luck to you!

I think that I would go with a more conventionally rigged model and use Puppeteer to choreograph the motion. Set up some target poses and then record your movements with some jiggle in the motion as you record. Puppeteer is good for introducing some slightly random motion to your final animation.

Something else that may be worth a try is to use the oscillate tweener with damping. Set up an animation as you normally would and then change some of the tweeners to oscillate and use some damping in the settings so that there is a bit of jiggle to get to the final position.

Just a couple of thoughts - good luck!

Mosk the Scribe

Thanks for suggestions
Part of what I'm trying to do is learn different techniques so I can apply them at need.
The other part is to get a certain amount of stuff done in a reasonably short time period - so both practical (get it done now) and theoretical (possible ways to consider in the future) recommendations are welcome.

Thanks