Strap pluck controller demo

This is the first part of the character rig that I'm developing to handle the swimsuit strapping (among other things).

One of the things that's always bothered me about 3D clothing is a combination of: A) outfits that don't react realistically to tightness or stretching (ie, straps that fail to remain straight as the character bends and moves around), and B) clothing that the characters themselves (or other characters in the same scene) are incapable of interacting with.

In my quest to create a reasonably realistic and flexible swimsuit model, one of the things I wanted to implement was the ability for the swimsuit straps to not only accommodate an expanding character (specifically around the chest)- but to also be "interactive" in such a way that I could just grab a "pluck" controller and manipulate the paths the straps took (as stretched between the shoulders and breasts) so that I could create poses and situations that would play off the tension of the swimsuit.

This is a demo of exactly such a rig. A chain of joints are constrained to a spline path, which itself is being modified in real-time by the "pluck" controller that determines the position (and tension) of the arc in the strapping (if any). By default, the pluck controller will automatically orient itself between the shoulders and breasts so it doesn't influence the path of the shoulder straps unless otherwise engaged. This essentially means that having the characters play around with their own straps will be as simple as grabbing the wrist controller, positioning the hand where I want it, posing the fingers (using the aforementioned Finger IK stuff) and then grabbing the pluck controller in the viewport and moving it to align with the hand.

The same system is also capable of handling situations where the beginning and end point of the straps is constantly changing. This is required since neither the shoulders nor the breasts will be stationary within a given scene. As the clavicals move around, so do the strap endpoints near the shoulders. Ditto for the breasts if the chest is twisting or the character is undergoing any sort of expansion and/or inflation. As shown in the demo video, the same setup is capable of operating regardless of where the endpoints are currently positioned- which is going to be a *very* important when it comes to aligning the straps with the rest of the swimsuit and body.

Demo video is attached below.