CG Shortcuts looks at a couple of ways to rig splines for animation in Cinema 4D.

Rigging objects is an essential part of the process before animation happens in 3D. If you don’t have control over parts of your object, you will find that animation becomes much harder. When working with splines in Cinema 4D there are likely many ways to create a rig for them, depending on what you are wanting to animate. Dave Bergin (CG Shortcuts) looks at a couple of ways that you can use to rig splines in C4D using the Spline IK tool and the Tracer too.

Bergin shows how to rig splines of varying shapes, one as a coiled cable type of premise while the other is more of a corrugated pipe style. Both ways are simple and don’t take up too much time, while offering a flexible way to, well, flex the sales and cords. As it is with all of CG Shortcuts tutorials, you can download the free project file too and use it in your own motion graphics work.

One great tool for rigging ropes and things is HoRope, it’s free and easy to use.