How to make Antenna Bouncey

Support Animation and Rigging
#1

I got a little robot I’m making for a game in Unity. I’m not too good at using physics in Blender, I understand this is probably something super simple, but how would I go about making his antenna bob back and forth while still staying attached to his head? This is what his antenna looks like, unfinished.

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I kinda just want it to wave back and forth as he walks, no animation, I want it to move dynamically. Would I use a soft body for the antenna? But then how do I bake the physics for Unity?

Thanks in advance

#2

If it needs to work in Unity, you might have a look there to see what’s possible.
Youi probably need a small boneset in there, to have Unity manipulate the antenna.
Check the Unity manual on soft body or alike I would say.

But I always moved rigid animation over to Unity, so this could be different. :wink:

#3

I’m not super familiar with manipulating armatures in Unity, but I kinda want the ball to just move around randomly as he walks, and to stay still(ish) when he’s not walking. And I want the antenna to stay attached to the ball, and follow it. So, how exactly would that work with an armature in the antenna? How do I make it just automatically move?

#4

It should all be part of the same geo hierarchy, and have a rig in there to animate the character.
You might want to look a bit more into rigging and animation if you want it all to work in Unity.
For all actions in Unity you will have to work with a set of animations inside the state machine.
The antenna can hopefully be something within the dynamics setups.

There’s no shortcuts here I’m afraid.

#5

I mean, there’s gotta be a way to just make the antenna follow the ball and just put the armature in the the antenna, right? I could have the tip of the armature bounce around in Unity I think, I just need some specifics on how to keep the armature from deforming the ball and head.

I know the basics of armatures, I’ve rigged a couple characters before, but never rigged a dynamic animation.

#6

I’m not sure I’m following you…
The antenna & ball can be one object, or just part of the main model.
Just rig the whole body & antenna so you could animate all of it in Blender as is.

Now in Unity, just see of you can setup a jiggle kind of animation on the antenna part of your rig, as a dynamic simulation on top of the animations of the character in-game.
I cannot imagen it to be more involved than that…

something like this maybe?
Jiggle | Animation Tools | Unity Asset Store

#7

Yeah, I’m trying to make it something like that. So, is there a way in Unity to just set up a dynamic animation like that? I had no idea. I have more experience in 2D than 3D. So, I know Unity can only read one armature, should I just separate a single armature into 2 and have one piece for the body/limbs, one piece for the antenna?

#8

My knowledge on dynamics in Unity is very limited, so I suggest you also create an account on the Unity forum, and ask there.
This is not a Blender thing per se, but more a technical solution in Unity. But one is linked to the other, so I would ask there as well.

Good luck! :slight_smile: