Restraints Modeling Progress (Part1)

Hello everyone, 

I'm back with another small update. Like I said at the end of the last devlog I was going to start modelling some restraints for Normalin. And I started with some basic rope ties. However making these is easier said than done!

In the old version of Normalin the ropes where simple cylinders with a rope textures plastered over it. This was a quick and dirty method that worked for the low poly style, but it won't do for the updated graphics.

For that reason I created the ropes individually and carefully placed them around Normalin's wrists, elbows and torso.  The result looks great in my opinion.

One of the biggest challenges was to attach the ropes to the appropriate bones. Due to the fact that I created the ropes on a different pose than the Rest Pose (T-Pose), they would end up in an undesired position. In the case of the elbow bindings they would go up inside Normalin's head.

It took me several days to come up with a reliable solution, in the form of a custom script. It places the ropes correctly on the model even during the Rest Pose:

And with that I could load the restraints into Unity and add them to Normalin while she was animating

Next I will work more complex rope bindings.

See you then!