Alright, so what I did is I made a model with 4 engines attached to it. I made each engine a separate object, so when I animated, they could be attached and still rotate around without moving the main part. The problem is that I can’t get them to stay aligned to the hull when I select them all and Make the entire assembly rotate or move. They begin sliding out of place despite the amount of keyframes and corrections I try to make.
Here are some images to help. What I need is for them to be attached, sort of like a joint. So I can move the main object and they will be exactly where they should be, but I can adjust the rotation. And have it be keyframed as well. Can I do this?
You have a bunch of options for making the work. The one I can think of that is closest to your current setup would be to parent the engines to the spaceship.
Get your engines positioned the way that you want. Click the engine then shift-click the space ship. Hit Ctrl+P. That should parent the engine to the spaceship and leave it in the current orientation. As you move and rotate the ship, the engines will follow. You might have to delete your existing keyframes since they will probably pull the engines off the ship.
Still gives me trouble. the two front engines are not parenting so that they can rotate properly. The point of rotation is way back near the rear engines, this means trying to adjust them makes them move huge distances because they are so far from the point of origin. Plus they rotate strangely too. I tried setting the Origin to geometry but it will not work.
