How to create a Boolean visibility control?

CrissieB

Hi all. I'm making a rope prop that will have only two possible poses: (1) sagging between two supports; and (2) taut between the supports. I'm making the meshes in Blender, using a cross-section and Blender's Screw and Curve modifiers. I think the simplest way to do this is to model the rope in each pose, make each mesh its own vertex group, and create a two-boned figure. The hierarchy would be Rope > Loose | Taut, where Loose and Taut are sibling children of the Rope figure. If the rope should be loose for a scene, users can Show the Loose bone and Hide the Taut bone ... and vice-versa if the rope should be taut for a scene.

It would be easy enough to click the Eyeball icon to show or hide the bones. But I'd like to make it easier still, with a Boolean Loose-Taut control on the base Rope bone that toggles between the poses by setting the child bones' visibility states. So the Loose (0) setting would Show the Loose bone and Hide the Taut bone, and the Taut (1) setting would reverse those bone visibilities.

What is the easiest way to create such a control? For example, might I rig the figure with the Loose bone visible and the Taut bone invisible, create the Boolean Loose-Taut control property, Hide the Loose bone and Show the Taut bone, and then ERC Freeze that for the control's Taut setting?

Thanks for your help!