Hello everyone.
This issue sort of revolves around a bunch of things so I figured the Animation section was a good middle ground.
I am currently working on creating a model something like this…

I am having a bit of trouble deciding what the best way to model with animation and rigging in mind. The little tentacle things need to wriggle and move randomly along the main surface. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

hmm im really not sure actually.

Have you thought about maya dynamics? im thinking maya hair…

Lee Dunham | Character TD
ldunham.blogspot.com

I would agree with the post above me. Judging by the picture I would assume that its almost looks like it would have the feel of a rubber ball. I would use n cloth and then constrain a few points on the cloth to a locator and use that to animate it around. Doing this would allow you to have interaction with an environment if it bumps into something it would squish and stretch. Im not sure if this would work but I think If you built another sphere but with the arms on it then have that geometry parent to the cloth sphere with some type of constraint that allows for it to deform like it. That would you still be able to independently rig a skeleton to the arms and plug in the script for random movement. Then you have a fully rigged thing. However Im not sure if that constraint type exist for attaching the geometry to the cloth in that kind of way.