Hooks in spring animation

Hi,
I made an animation in which a spring contracts. I made the spring from several bezier circles. Each control point of the circles is hooked to a bone which shrinks on x axis(length reduction). This works fine but when I export this to a .fbx file for unity the spring doesn’t contract, although the armature action still works fine. Does anyone know how to do this? I’m using hooks because that’s the only way I could get it to work in blender.
Appreciate all the help





Hmmm, this is not the best way to build a spring in Blender. :no:

To build a spring you need a circle, offset from an empty. The empty represents the centre of the spring, the circle its profile. The empty should be a distance above the circle, assuming you make the spring in the Z axis - modify for other axis. You then add a Screw Modifier to the circle using the empty as the target object, and set the target axis. The set the iterations for however many coils you need. The when you move the empty, the spring contracts or extends - simples!

Here is an example with the whole thing parented so you can revolve it, just press Play: shock.blend (537 KB)

Cheers, Clock.

I already tried with screw modificator, and managed to make a spring animation(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhNMwUenh3w). Problem is that this way I can’t export a file that I can later use in unity. The idea is to make this later work in unity.

I don’t know what animation tools are available within Unity, but you might get some usable ideas from the way I rig a spring for the BGE.

Best wishes,
Matthew