Keynote Reference Guide

[HwitVlf]

OK
As i say the bone deformation is not bad but could be better. So I tried a morph on the neck/head region which js a pain to move all the verts and it only really gives one option ie +1. What I think needs to happen is that, as the neck and head bend downwards the front belly area needs to drop rather than follow the arc of the neck.

The bdef tag will enable WOVertex but that has its limitations. For example a red vert, even though its at zero, can't get any redder so you can only give it a negative number. It also gets confusing when having to swap in and out of keynote and trying to remember which verts to select.

I've uploaded the mqo here if you want to take a look. I changed the neck bone into a constain bone and as you'll see it also controls a smaller bone in the belly region, vai the code in the bump channel. Are you with me so far!
There are bout 10 different codes that can be used though my initial experiments have been varied!
This is a wip and not good (anchors need adjustment) but I think you can see how this may work

This constrain setup may work well for making SoM Enemies that can 'fall apart' when they die, or even with crazy 'Tranzor Z' style rocketing fist attacks. Am I right that the (C,5. . .) tag would be ideal for setting up a linked rotating gear model? For something like a windmill model that was geared to a grind-stone, you could set up the 'fan' as the main bone and make the other shafts turn automatically with the fan.

Your sheep seems very close to 'just right'. The constraint bone seems like it would work with a little tweaking. Maybe making it longer so it doesn't deflect as much or linking it to the shorter neck bone. Did you make the models yourself? They're quite impressive. I can make artificial 'symmetrical' shapes decently (cars etc), but it's quite hard to make a natural animal shape that looks that good.