Can you add bones to a skeleton dynamically?

Unreal Engine Character & Animation
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#1

I have a prototype idea which requires a 3D “snake” style mechanic where the snake gets longer with each power up collected. Just wondering about how to approach this. My initial idea is to create a skeleton that can have bones segments added to it at the end. That way I can keep the movement hierarchy where all body segments follow the movement of the head. But I’m not sure that it’s even possible to add bones on the fly?

I looked into the possibility of using a spline and adding the body segments along that but it didn’t look like it would give me the snake-like head-to-body movement hierarchy I was after.

Anyway, if anyone knows if this is possible or has other suggestions about how to approach it that would be greatly appreciated.

#2

Thanks! So the second suggestions sounds more like it would be appropriate for what I am after. So maybe doing something like creating an actor BP with an arrow as an attach point for each new segment? The general idea is that the player can extend the length of the snake but also lose segments as well, so would the “add child” be appropriate here?

Anyway, thanks again. I will have a play and post back with my findings.

#3

It depends abit on how your snake is build up. You want to stretch its mesh when you add a bone? Or you have separated bits of “snake”?

Id imagine a snake head model, which has an X amount of children who are separate models. And at the last child a tail gets added as a child.