Naturally-moving drop-tails
============================

I've been asked a few times now how to make drop tails, or
tails with different shapes, that don't behave oddly and that
aren't stiff (as happens with all-addball tails).

Well, all of my drop-tails work as intended, including the ones
in my "howto" examples.  They were all made before the modern 
craze for addball-only tails swept through the Petz community, 
because I always try to work _with_ the behaviours of base ballz
rather than disabling them.  I'm not saying anything against
addball-only tails, many of them look great and I have downloaded
all the stunning new creations by addballz-only fans.  I'm fully
delighted by the gorgeous breedz of today :-)

But as soon as you start to try, say, adding extra ballz to the 
end of the tail it moves oddly -- and no amount of fiddling in [Move] 
and [Project Ball] will alter that, because you're trying to go
against the natural behaviours of the tail.

If we work _with_ the behaviours, we can make something really 
good, doing some useful work through [Move] and [Project Ball] as 
well as adding ballz in the right way.  It's best to build in the 
behaviours with your tail, folding the added ballz into it really, 
rather than just adding them on to the end.  The [Project Ball] 
stuff is then pretty simple.  I'll use as example a couple of rough
designs which I sent to people who asked for help; they will have
changed the positions etc when finishing off their breedz so I
feel that it's okay to use my rough "sketches" here.

Note that you need to remove any tail data that might already exist 
in the relevant section of the LNZ ([Move] etc) and put my rough
example stuff there instead.

First example is a curved drop-tail on a cat.

CATZ
====

Let's say you want a prehensile type of tail on a cat breed.
You want it to be long, slightly stretchy-looking, and down-curving.
Catz have particularly difficult behaviours, as their tails 
switch in many directions right up to the tip of the tail.
So, you want to reposition the existing tail ballz:

Under [Move]

;tail
43, 0, 5,   20,  3
44, 0, 20,  50,  3
45, 0, 50,  100, 3
46, 0, 100, 160, 3
47, 0, 150, 200, 3
48, 0, 180, 170, 3

and you want to "anchor" them:

Under [Project Ball]

2, 44, 100
2, 45, 100
2, 46, 100
2, 47, 95
2, 48, 95
;
43, 44, 140
44, 45, 140
45, 46, 140
46, 47, 140
47, 48, 140
;note that you will be making extra ballz to
;go between the originals, so let's say your
;extras are ballz number 92-96.  We'll come to
;positioning them when we come to [Add Ball], but
;for now we anchor them up here.
44, 92, 60
45, 93, 60
46, 94, 60
47, 95, 60
48, 96, 60

Under [Add Ball] you want to position your extra ballz
and give them size, colour, etc.

;tail 92
43, 0, 0,  0, 55,  0, 0, 1, 6, -1, 0, 0, 0, 1,43
44, 0, 0,  0, 45,  0, 0, 1, 2, -1, 0, 0, 0, 1,44
45, 0, 0,  0, 55,  0, 0, 1, 2, -1, 0, 0, 0, 1,45
46, 0, 0,  0, 45,  0, 0, 1, 2, -1, 0, 0, 0, 1,46
47, 0, 30, 0, 55,  0, 0, 2, 2, -1, 0, 0, 0, 1,47

And finally, we join the whole tail up under [Linez]

48, 96, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100
96, 47, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100
47, 95, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100
95, 46, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100
46, 94, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100
94, 45, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100
45, 93, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100
93, 44, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100
44, 92, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100
92, 43, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100
43, 3, 1, -1, -1, -1, 100, 100

You will want to alter the shape, I've only done it roughly,
but the tail will move in a natural kind of way.

DOGZ
====

So you want to ahve a prehensile-looking tail on a dogz breed.
Okay, the principle is exactly the same as for the catz.
You want to reposition the existing tail ballz:

Under [Move]

;tail
57, 0, 5,   20,  49
58, 0, 20,  50,  49
59, 0, 50,  100, 49
60, 0, 100, 160, 49
61, 0, 150, 200, 49
62, 0, 180, 170, 49

and you want to "anchor" them:

Under [Project Ball]

48, 58, 100
48, 59, 100
48, 60, 100
48, 61, 95
48, 62, 95
57 58 140
58 59 140
59 60 140
60 61 140
61 62 140
;note that you will be making extra ballz to
;go between the originals, so let's say your
;extras are ballz number 83-87.  We'll come to
;positioning them when we come to [Add Ball], but
;for now we anchor them up here.
58 83 60
59 84 60
60 85 60
61 86 60
62 87 60

Under [Add Ball] you want to position your extra ballz
and give them size, colour, etc.

;tail83
57 0 0 0 90 244 0 1 6 -1 0 13 0 1 57
58 0 0 0 90 244 0 1 2 -1 0 13 0 1 58
59 0 0 0 90 244 0 1 2 -1 0 13 0 1 59
60 0 0 0 90 244 0 1 2 -1 0 13 0 1 60
61 0 30 0 90 244 0 2 2 -1 0 13 0 1 61


And finally, we join the whole tail up under [Linez]

62 87 1 -1 244 244 100 100
87 61 1 -1 244 244 100 100
61 86 1 -1 244 244 100 100
86 60 1 -1 244 244 100 100
60 85 1 -1 244 244 100 100
85 59 1 -1 244 244 100 100
59 84 1 -1 244 244 100 100
84 58 1 -1 244 244 100 100
58 83 1 -1 244 244 100 100
83 57 1 -1 244 244 100 100
57 49 1 -1 244 244 100 100

You will want to alter the shape, I've only done it roughly,
but the tail will move in a natural kind of way.

Enjoy!

Carolyn