StickyChain - pose tool [Released]

StickyChain is a plug-in to pose a sequence of nodes in a catenary curve. Imitating a rope hanging from two points.

The primary intended use of StickyChain is to help in the posing of rigged ropes or chains.

While the StickyChain is ON, the catenary shape will update automatically when the StickyChain(or its parents) is moved and or when the ChainRoot (or its parents) is moved and or when the scene time is manually changed. The StickyChain will not update when the ChainEnd node or any of the nodes following ChainRoot to ChainEnd (i.e. excluding ChainRoot), are moved manipulated.

However, that movement will be overwritten/lost when StickyChain is triggered by movement of the ChainRoot or the StickyChain node. The stickyChain can be stopped from overwriting rotations on those chain node by simply turning the StickyChain OFF. Or alternatively lock the rotation property of those nodes.

StickyChain will not change the local orientation of a locked property, however locked properties may impede StickyChain’s ability to orient subsequent nodes so that the ChainEnd aligns with the position of the StickyChain node.

Important Limitation

StickyChain does not include any model or shape. StickyChain is designed to work with rigged figures. Figures that you own or create.

StickyChain is a pose tool designed to manipulate rigged figures’ node orientation.

StickyChain does not create or alter any morphs. StickyChain creates standard animation keys on the figure’s bones/nodes. StickyChain takes no part in and is not required for PlayBack of the animation keys that it creates.

StickyChain only works with rigged figures that have bone/nodes arranged in a recursive parent-child arrangement. The parent-child hierarchy provides a simple way for StichyChain to work out which nodes are in the chain and the order that they should be arranged when posing the node in a catenary curve.

StickyChain will not work with unrigged or figures rigged with bones/nodes arranged in parallel (brother-sister).

The product includes a manual, which after the plugin has been installed can be found in the DAZStudio4 install folder "/docs/Plugins/StickyChain/StickyChain Manual.pdf". Please read.

Demonstration Videos:

StickyChain plugin - part 1 - Creation and movement

StickyChain plugin - part 2 - Animation

StickyChain plugin - part 3 - Multiple chains

StickyChain plugin - part 4 - Example

Registration: Please make sure that you input your registration key. The plugin has a 14 day trial period to allow time for you to input your registration key.

Update: 25/Feb/2023

The StickyChain context menu item can now be shown or hidden as required.
The default is for the StickyChain menu item to be visible in the Viewports Context menu(right click) when the "Universal" or "Node Selection" or "ActivePose" view tools are in use.
If you wish to have the StickyChain context menu visible with other view tools then the attached script(StickyChainContextMenu.dsa) can be used to set/change registry keys that control the StickyChain's context visiblity. The registry keys are only read on application start so an application restart before changes will take effect.
The full details can be found in the updated user manual.

NOTE: The script is not included with the plugin distribution. The code for the script is included in the updated manual.

Details regarding the other fix in the update can be found in the StickyChain Plugin Product Notes page.