Scapula and armature bone question

I want to animate a scapula rotating under the skin where the bone is static but the skin is pushed out of the way by the bone instead of being carried by the deform bone. The current solution I can think of is to create a grid of deform bones and assign them weights and use limit distance bones to cause an effect of a static object pushing against an elestic skin. I could use shape keys but that would not be as effective as using bones and it would cost more time. Is there anything that allows bones to become limit distance with all vertecies in a mesh so that the bone simply pushes vertecies out of its way with a given limit as it moves?

Thanks, James

Not totally sure what you’re asking here, but I’d recommend looking at a shrinkwrap (outside mode, targeting a non-rendering mesh that is bone parented) rather than limit distance, which will just exclude a sphere. You’ll need to control the constrained bones’ rotations as well, so you may need damped track and locked track targets.

A different technique, that will work a little differently, is to use a dynamic mesh deform to slide the skin around.

I think you’ll find that shapekeys are a much easier way to do what you want, but there’s no harm in learning that yourself.

Well, you have me thinking for sure. I’ll let you know what I do. I will try using shape keys. The Shrinkwrap solution sounds good as well.

Thanks.