Constraint Limitations

artistsconcept

I'm trying to understand the limitations Spine has concerning weights and paths. I made a complex skeleton that included this in an attempt to get create some mouth animation.

image >(weights)> bone >(path constraint)> path >(weights)> bone
(A.K.A. an image weighted to a bone path constrained to a path weighted to a bone)

This worked fine, but then I duplicated the last bone and created a "local" transform constraint between original and duplicate, so I could see it and manipulate it with out blocking the image.

image >(weights)> bone >(path constraint)> path >(weights)> bone > (local transform constraint)> bone

And then the link between the first bone in this hierarchy and the path seemed to stop working. Is there a limit to the number of constraints you can have in a row? I just want to have the limitations clearly defined so I know how to plan out my skeletons.

artistsconcept

Nate

There aren't many limitations. Likely it appears your path constraint stopped working because the transform constraint is overriding the changes made by the path constraint. The bones are posed, then the constraints are applied in order. You can change the order by dragging the constraints under the Constraints node. If your transform constraint mix is < 0 then you'll see the pose from the path constraint. You can also use a mode that doesn't overwrite the pose, like by making the transform constraint relative, or only letting the transform constraint overwrite some of the pose, eg by setting the translate mix to 0.

artistsconcept

Thank you for your help! I changed the order of the constraints, and it worked.