Rotating with parent-child vs trigonometry

So I have been wondering about something. I want to make one object orbit another. For that purpose I could do different ways and I’m curious about what people think of the options.

  1. Parent-child structure: Simple example

    • Planet is pivot, child orbits around it by rotating a child object located at the center of the planet.
  2. Trigonometry: More complex

    • Rotating around an object on unit sphere, calculating sin and cos as you go.
  3. Spline walker: Complex setup, easy to animate

    • Define a spline to define an orbit. Added benefit is to have full control over the path (though I am not sure interpolating the points would work performantly and I can’t really find anything on this)

I think for making an orbit around an object, either of these would work, but for my use case I want to draw the line, which is leading me to the third method. Since I don’t know how to draw a spline for a trigonometry function. What are your thoughts on this?