Splice asked if I could help them with the 3D hurdles of getting a series of box ribbons to unfurl gracefully while still maintaining some degree of control over the whole simulation.
The problem, of course, was being able to animate the ribbons coming off the box in a controlled, directed motion then seamlessly falling to the ground. It would be almost an impossible challenge to hand animate the from beginning to end. So I had to come up with a way to mix both worlds.
I tried various methods including: pure cloth simulations, joints rigged and aligned along a spline, and soft body simulations. I ended up using a method consisting of the Spline Wrap Deformer, PoseMorph, and Soft Bodies. First the ribbon was aligned to the a control spline using the Spline Wrap. Then it animated using PoseMorph and rail spline for finite control over the rotation of the ribbons. And finally when I was done animating the ribbons, I turned on dynamics and the soft body simulation took over and landed the ribbons realistically.
