Lattice Rigging (Patreon)

Okay, so this one is more of a technical update. 

For the past week I've been working on creating scripts that will generate control and mechanism bones based on a collection of bones I give it.
The input is simply some bones that have been aligned in a grid (picture 1), and the end result should be some controllers that are positioned on the corners of the armature and pull the intermediate bones with them. The 7th-9th pictures show this behavior.

The system is based on guiding bones which span from the corner control points and to which the intermediate control bones are parented.

The parts on a model where I plan to use it, are tongues, cheeks, genitals, and basically anything else that deforms more on a surface level and needs to deform smooth and stable.

Additionally I hope to create better face rigs for my models using this method in the future, as the current setup I have is decent for most deformations, but it lacks subtlety in how the lips can move which I hope to improve upon. One big goal would be to have them do lip sync, but we'll see how that goes ^^;;

You can see  some of the deformations that this simpler grid gives the tongue with very few controllers needing to be adjusted. Additional actions I want the tongue to be able to do is to roll its sides up, spin up, curl its tip up and down, etc.

Picture information:

• 1: User created input bones
• 2: Script generated guiding bones
• 3: Scrip generated control bones. The intermediate ones are parented to the closest guide bones
• 4: Script generated section control bones. All control bones without a parent are parented to the closest section controller which allows for less bones needing to be manipulated during posing
• 5-6: All bones together
• 7-9: Pulling on control bones and section controllers only. Notice how the intermediate bones follow along correctly. The original deformation bones also have bendy bones sections which makes them adapt to the curvature
• 10-14: Example deformation with tongue