Bicycle Rig

This bicycle rig employs an Spline IK for the bike chain that is controlled by the custom curve used for the Spline IK . My goal for this project was to gain knowledge of rigging props and vehicles. The animation shown is based on the master controller attached to a motion path. The master controller also drives the wheel, pedal, and chain motion based on the forward movement (translateZ).

Model and textures from Sketchfab

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Wheel and Pedal Movement

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Wheel, pedal, and chain movement can be connected through animation expressions that connect the rotation of the pedal control to that of the wheel and chain rotation.

Chain Set-up

To rig the bike chain, there is one joint for each chain link. Then a NURBS curve was created to match the shape of the chain, which is then used to create a Spline IK handle. To animate the chain rotating the spline curve rotation is driven by the pedal control.

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