Majic Carpet animation and rig

[3DMastermind]

Someone asked for an animated Majic Carpet on XsiBase so I had to try it.
I attached the scene here, since it doesn't seem possible to attach on XsiBase??
Scene attached.
Load and hit play.

Enjoy.

[norvman]

Ha! very cool Manny very cool...

Very Harryhousen

[4602]

yeah simple and cool
only thing i would do in the end is changing some operators of place. such as the curve deform to animation, and jitter to shape stack in the grid. as well as the curve lattice.

[EricTRocks]

Question for manny,

First off, thanks for the quick "rig" of the magic carpet. Truly a simple yet effective solution.

Now say the animator needs to actually have a rig in there to add some personality, what do you suggest? Since the carpet Mesh is simply being deformed and not translated in space, how would the carpet Rig move with it? Something along the lines of a static kine state hookup?

Just want to know some ideas from the true pro. I'm trying to build up my rigging knowledge / learn some more tricks.

Later,
Eric T.

[3DMastermind]

Hey Eric. Sorry for the late reply...
When adding bones and enveloping... it may seem wacky.
That's normal because it must eval the envelope before the 2 deforms and since it was just added it will do it after.
Many ask what the "secondary shape modeling" construction mode is for... well here is a situation where you need it.
Simply move the 2 deforms above the envelope op in the "secondary shape modeling" container.
This way, it will consider the topology to deform as an "envelope"...