Can a slight flexi type of movement be built into a mesh using weighting?

[Violaine Villota]

3 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

The IK spline itself stays within Blender. You can export the resulting animations to use them in SL, so that the motion you see in Blender as result from the IK spline setup can be used and played back in SL. 

Okay cool, that's what I thought initially but then when you said we can't export it as is to SL, I thought you meant that the resulting animation wouldn't work either. I'm glad my first assumption was the right one.
I'm thinking now that the hind legs might be the best ones to use, move them to right below the wing bones, and then the hind leg bones that have been moved right below the wing bones, can I make them follow the animations that the wing bones are doing in a similar way? I'm assuming yes, but I am worried about messing up the order of bones in the chain and having it break the whole thing.
I haven't had a chance to open Blender and check it out but that is the direction I think I'm going.

[OptimoMaximo]

12 minutes ago, Violaine Villota said:

Okay cool, that's what I thought initially but then when you said we can't export it as is to SL, I thought you meant that the resulting animation wouldn't work either. I'm glad my first assumption was the right one.

The comment about not being able to export "as is" was from Kyrah, not me  What she meant is that you can't export the modified structure itself, as the SL internal simulator has no clue about those and doesn't accept modifications to the established skeleton hierarchy. The resulting animation would be applied to the SL avatar skeleton and as such, it will run no problem (providing that you don't add bones or that you don't modify the hierarchy structure). You can reposition and change the shape of the bones as you like, as long as you don't change the parent-child relationships within the SL avatar's skeleton; the control rig can have the hierarchy you want and will constraint the original bones to follow, that's why an animation control rig comes in handy when you need to simulate a different structure. And an IK setup, whether with spline or not, falls within such definition: it stays in your 3D software to let you animate as you wish, controlling an established and immutable underlying structure (the SL avatar skeleton and its hierarchy).

Edited January 8, 2019 by OptimoMaximo

[Violaine Villota]

10 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

The comment about not being able to export "as is" was from Kyrah, not me  What she meant is that you can't export the modified structure itself, as the SL internal simulator has no clue about those and doesn't accept modifications to the established skeleton hierarchy. The resulting animation would be applied to the SL avatar skeleton and as such, it will run no problem (providing that you don't add bones or that you don't modify the hierarchy structure). You can reposition and change the shape of the bones as you like, as long as you don't change the parent-child relationships within the SL avatar's skeleton; the control rig can have the hierarchy you want and will constraint the original bones to follow, that's why an animation control rig comes in handy when you need to simulate a different structure. And an IK setup, whether with spline or not, falls within such definition: it stays in your 3D software to let you animate as you wish, controlling an established and immutable underlying structure (the SL avatar skeleton and its hierarchy).

Ah! Sorry to confuse your comment with hers.
Alright, so as long as I don't break the hierarchy I'm good. Is that elephant tutorial the one with the most relevant instructions for what I'm talking about then or would you recommend something different?

[OptimoMaximo]

@Violaine Villota that tutorial is a good starting point 😃

[Violaine Villota]

Awesome, thanks for the advice