I have a curve. I need to somehow rig it so that I can smoothly "unbend" it at its "elbows"; I need it rigged so that I can bend it bag and forth at will.
I haven't been able to figure out a way to bend it open so that the "elbow" becomes completely vertically straight curve when "unbent"; it seems that no matter what I try it always has a nasty weird V-ish shape at the elbow even when unbent. Of course, part of the difficulty is the fact that the curve has quite a few points. Unfortunately due to the nature of the project, I have to have the curve be as smooth as it is around the elbows (it's used for array duplication of zipper teeth).
Also, due to the nature of the project, the curve's initial position is important--so I can't start with it unbent and rig it to become bent, for example.
I've included an image showing the the starting shape and the desired end shape.
Rigging it so that it can smoothly bend at the "elbows" seems like it should be so simple, but I can't seem to accomplish it. Any ideas?