I have an arm that picks up a ball. When I try to keyframe the ball to stay in the arm’s claw, it doesn’t look perfect. The best way would be to make the ball a child, but I don’t want it to be a child the whole animation because when the claw moves down to get the ball, the ball would also move down. How can I make the claw the parent only when it is holding it? Thanks.
Try using the Child Of constraint, and keyframe its influence.
yep, and although in your case your object only needs one parent, there are lots of situations, where you need to use multiple child of constraints, such as, if you made a gunslinger, and you had to key between the influence of the holster, and the hand, depending on whether the gun was drawn, or holstered.
Thanks exactly what I was looking for, just adding a curve to the “Inf” thing under constraints, going straight from 0 to 1 at the frame where it grabs it. Thanks again!
Beautiful - works a treat with a parcel unloading from a lorry onto a plane