Just Curious as to how you go about animating an entire collection.
The collection appears as one hard surface model. Joining the entire collection together is not an option as doing so breaks the meshes.
Being a hard surface model it requires no deformation but I have considered attaching an armature to it…although maybe I could (if possible) just attach it to an empty?
Any thoughts/suggestions?
Jim
The original collection is dependant on it’s modelling position, so I tend to hide that from render and create a collection instance, which by default, is linked to an empty at the collection origin, then you can animate that.
Are you talking about ‘joining’ or ‘connecting?’
If you Ctrl-J all the objects (joining), that shouldn’t mess with the meshes because that just makes them all one object, not all one mesh. If you go a step further and create new edges/faces that connect them all into one mesh (connecting), then I can see how it will mess things up, but just doing the first step shouldn’t.
Hey, As some one who does mechanical rigging, my vote is for an Armature - stay clear of ‘Emptys’ unless your very familiar with rigging/animating in Blender. 
