Bone basics

Hello

I’m about to explore the possibilities of bones in Blender and perhaps someone can give me a helpful start with my very first project:
I have 2 cubes and 1 single bone. The cubes’ origines are exactly positioned at the ends of the bone.
What I’d like to realize:
If I wanna set the lower cube as my solid, unmovable base, I can set the DOFs on the N-Panel,ok so far, but now how can I correctly parent the upper cube to the bone, in order to move the cube just horizontally by rotating the bone (and scale itself up and down). Or would it only work by moving the cube horizontally, and the bone would follow an adapt his size?

Greetings


there a more ways todo this, this is one.

in object mode seect the upper cube, then add a transformation constraint.
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7219/consk.png
this will make the cube X location follow the bone Y rotation, based on limits.

you could make the bone track the origin of the upper cube also, this would keep the bone pointed at the cube.

The constraints, of course…well thanks for the hint :wink:

What is the reason for wanting to do that with a bone?

I’m about to create some machines, and the reason why I wanted this behaviour from a bone is have an overview…