I was wondering if there was a way to somehow make a sword and sheath so that when the sword was pulled out of the sheath the sheath would point at the sword so that my char could pull the sword out without it going through the sheath. Sorry if I wasn’t being clear enough, if you need more info just ask. Thanks.
My way would be to place an empty at the hilt/mouth of the scabbard. Parent the scabbard to the empty. Then give the empty a ‘Copy Rotation’ constraint targeting the sword. Now when you animate the sword being drawn, just make sure the blade passes by that empty.
Hope this helps.
That works, except the sheath sticks out at a right angle with the sword. I must be doing something wrong but I cant figure out what.
Select your sword, press F7 for the Object Buttons, and click the “Axis” button in the Draw tab. Do the same for your empty.
In order for the trick to work, the axes have to point in the same direction. What I suspect has happened is you added the empty from a different angle than you used when you added the cube or whatever it was that you turned into the sword.
To fix it, remove the copy rotation constraint, align the sword along one of the global coordinate axes and press Ctrl-A --> Apply Size/Rotation. Do the same for the empty (parent of the scabbard). Now, select the scabbard and rotate it so that it is also in line with the sword and empty. Reapply the constraint.
You can forego most of that and just rotate the scabbard from the start, but I tend to prefer that things are right from the start: it will help avoid potential rotational problems later when animating.
Hope this helps.