Rigging a weapon to a hand - Impossible?

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Hello!

As the title might suggest, I want to rig a 3D modeled sword to a hand(bone).

GOAL: I want to animate my character throwing the sword away.

PROBLEM: If i’d move the sword away, and then move the hand bone, the sword will also start to move since it’s parented to the hand.

QUESTION: Is there any way to solve such a “problem”? I’ve been searching online but can’t find much about this specific problem.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: would perhaps be not to parent the sword bone to the hand bone, and just move it as I move the hand. But I doubt that is the only solution to this problem, or am I wrong?

2

Don’t parent sword to the hand bone. Use Child of constrain and at some point where you need to throw your sword away, animate the influence of Child of constrain from 1 to 0. You can find tuts on YouTube how to do that

3

Thanks for your reply, Silverland.

However, I have already tried that. What eventually happened is that when I changed the influence to 0 from 1, the sword bone moved to it’s default position. E.g I move the hand bone from point A to point B(point A being the default armature location), and the sword follows as it is a child as it should. Though, when I the proceed to change the influence to 0, the sword returns to it’s default position in point A. I can move the sword independetly now, but it’s location is completely irrelevant to the hand since it returned to the default position. But now as I am writing this message, I thought of something. Couldn’t I just let the sword return to point A as I turned down the influence to 0, and then move it to where I wanted it to be? Is this possibly how u meant it should’ve been? Because if there is any other way to do this where the sword stays at the hands location when influence is 0, i’d be glad to know.

Once again, thanks for your reply!

4

Do it this way. http://www.harkyman.com/2009/10/23/how-to-pick-up-and-drop-an-object-in-blender/

5

“What eventually happened is that when I changed the influence to 0 from 1, the sword bone moved to it’s default position.”

There is “Set inverse” button on that constrain. Click it and it’s should help.

6

This seems to be exactly what I’ve been looking for and I can’t wait to try it out. Thank you very much!

7

This seems to be exactly what I’ve been looking for and I can’t wait to try it out. Thank you very much!

8

I use to follow that harkyman article…however there is an addon that does that whole process with the click of a button. Google “dynamic parent blender” It’s exactly what you need.