So… this may simply be what separates the hobbyists from the professional animators… but I thought I’d ask anyway.
How would one rig a scissor lift using bones and stretch constraint (similar to how this piston was rigged)? I’m importing this into Unity so it needs to use bones instead of the more advanced Blender features.
I don’t need any step-by-step list. Just wondering what all would be involved. Just rotation constraints? Somehow tied to the bones.
I’m just hoping there’s a more Unity-friendly way than rotating each and every part and doing vertex animation.
I am no pro, but you can build it with chain of bones like so:
Only thing that’s driving is, as you put it, copy rotation constraint. Each bone just copy the bone rotation at the base. Since each bone is connected, as bone rotate the rig expands. The scissor structures are simply parented to each bone.
As for Unity, you may need to create action sequence to drive it.
The structure of bones shown by Ridix is correct but use IK and lock the axes of rotation except for one, and optionally rangelimit the rotation. Center the target and lock the target’s everything except for z translate. IK is absolutely the perfect solution for this IMO because with the locks the IK solver only comes up with one possible solution. And the chain can be very long, and you only have to move one bone!
