Hello, I am a student just learning Blender. I have to do robot rigging in class, but I am having a hard time because all the bones are playing separately.
I would be grateful if you could tell me the optimal bone connection method.
Once there is a connecting hinge between the pillars, and when this hinge is unfolded, it is a structure that unfolds in four directions. I haven’t been able to find the best bone rigging to do this.
I would do it with 4 IK chains:
The four pillars are parented to a central, non-deforming control. Each pillar is the parent of a two-bone IK chain and the target of a different IK chain. Disable “inherit scale” on the pillar bones, and we can control the entire thing just by scaling the control.
thank you so much !!! i will try it right now!!! love you
Thank you very much, you have progressed a lot. However, it is a little difficult because the end of the hinge is folded. How can I make it not fold?
I’m afraid I don’t understand. Here’s the file I saved regarding it, maybe that can answer your question:
4pillarsdemo.blend (805.8 KB)
You originally had like two segments between each pillar. Now you have five in your drawing, and apparently four in your bones. What do you want to do with them?
Maybe you should show me your file, what you have so far.
It says access denied.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pimwBTVFlnPBV2jDLKitSh7sYJTJi3RM/view?usp=sharing
SORRY for inconvenience here is new link
really nice solution!! just a hint for rig beginners like me: if you build the base rig with horizontal and vertical bones - it won’t work. the “starting” angles of the “horizontal” bones shouldn’t be horizontal but have a little angle 
I have solved it !!
THANKS.
If you want a gap that’s rigid with the pillar, don’t include it in the IK. Make a new IK target instead:
So pillar.back.right.005 is parented to pillar.front.right, and is the target of the 2-chain IK constraint.
If you want a rigid gap between the two rotating bones, pillar.back.right.002 and pillar.back.right.004 for example, the height that the bones are going to reach is going to depend on the distance between the pillars, and you need to use drivers and trigonometry and algebra to figure it out. There isn’t a simple way to do it with constraints, and you don’t want to just make a bone and include it in the IK. The distance including rotating bone, spacer, rotating bone is equal to 2 * length(rotator) * cos(angle) + length(spacer), so with some algebra you can solve for the angle. Given that, the height that the rotators reach is length(rotator) * sin(angle). The spacer should be centered between the two pillars, at that height, at which point you can have the rotating bones use it as a parent or IK target (for a single bone IK.)
canyou send yhe file you made??
I didn’t make any driver.
No. I didn’t make any file that’s any use to you at this point.
oh okay thank you
for helping me this far
