[Bf-committers] Soft Limits for Constraints?

[Tobias Oelgarte]

Currently we have some limiting constraints. All have hard limits. That 
means there will be no interaction until the limit has been reached. But 
as soon the limit is reached it will have full impact.

For organic models it results in not fluid motion. As this constraints 
are in comparison to others very simple (especially 'limit distance' and 
'floor'), wouldn't it a great option to give them a second distance or 
offset that the constraint already starts working if the secondary 
distance is reached? Slowly (linear/cubic) getting more influence until 
the original limit will take full effect. The result would be a smooth 
blending between unconstrained and fully constrained state.

My typical ball example: The ball is the constraint object/bone, while 
the wall is the limit. Throwing the ball "through" the wall would softly 
start to stop him, before he reaches the surface of the wall. As he hits 
the wall, he will be fully constrained as usual. Without a secondary 
limit the ball would fly at full speed until it hits and stop immediately.

Is someone willing to implement this (optional) feature for this kind of 
constraints? Or does it not make sense since it could be done in a other 
way?

Greetings from
Tobias Oelgarte