Need to make a shark swim

[PG-13]

This must be simple so I must be missing something. I want to have a shark swim along a sinious path. I created a path with a series of S curves and could easily make the shark follow and stay aligned to the path. However it moves like a car, or wooden fishing plug. What I need is for the shark's geometry to conform to the path as it moves. In my old Imagine days this was as simple as selecting a single option and it created very realistic organic motions.

I spend a couple of hours experimenting with LW and looking for a tutorial last night but without success. So before I burn up a few more hours I thought I would come to those "in the know"!

Any suggestions on how to make this happen would be appreciated. Thanks in advanced!

[Weetos]

I'm also interested in knowing how to do this. I've tried a bone chain with the tail bone goaled to a null (following the path), and then tried to apply some oscillation to the null. The body was conforming to the path, but the tail movement wasn't looking real.

Regards,

Weetos

[arsad]

Hi go to www.flay.com and do a search for shift spline transform.
This will do the most of the work implied. And for the tail movement use some endomorphs.

happy lightwavin'

[jamesl]

If you have 8.0, dstorm has a new plugin that looks like a lot of fun:

http://www.dstorm.co.jp/dslib/index-e.html

just released!

cheers,

j

[CoryC]

I recently did a video of a shark swimming and the best thing that helped me was watching a lot of sharks swimming....but run the video backwards. It gives a lot of clues to how they move. It is not a simple bending back and forth.

[PG-13]

BINGO! Thanks jamesl the Trailer plugin at Dstorm does exactly what I needed! While I was there I also found another nice plugin that allows me to preview renders on an NTSC monitor via firewire! Again thanks!