Thx for the tut on the really nice and useful Dynamic Parent addon! Until this addon is officially updated, here is a hotfix that works at least for 4.1 alpha :) for win 11 Edit the dynamic_parent.py that is in C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.1\scripts\addons Find the two following two lines! This one now only takes 1-2 args, instead of 1-3 bpy.ops.constraint.childof_set_inverse(C, constraint=last_constraint.name, owner='OBJECT') bpy.ops.constraint.childof_set_inverse(C, constraint=last_constraint.name, owner='BONE') to (Just remove the first argument "C" in each) bpy.ops.constraint.childof_set_inverse(constraint=last_constraint.name, owner='OBJECT') bpy.ops.constraint.childof_set_inverse(constraint=last_constraint.name, owner='BONE') Save and then restart Blender
I am no coder, but at the time, those small changes made the addon work :) I guess Blender changed the arguments required for that command for 4.0 and newer, and "broke" addons using it. Now it's not needed, as the addon is now officially updated, 6th of december 2023, with exactly those line fixes!
I use this addon ALL the time, absolute necessity when animating. A few tips I've learned while using it: 1. Parenting is opposite of default blender, that is, you must select the Parent object THEN child object. Default blender is opposite. 2. If you pickup the object multiple times with the same parent, you want to make multiple dynamic parents, instead of keyframing the influence on/off of a single constraint. 3. The default keyframe type is Bezier and auto clamped. setting them to Constant will help with drifitng issues. 4. When you're using with a rig, handing the same object off between (eg hands), can give the "select two objects" error. You may need to use an intermediatary empty, or a manual child of constraint. Other than those small caveats it's a great add-on!
In our studio we developed our own method for these situations without 3rd parties by building all the desirable slots in the metarig itself. Our philosophy is “Every animation data should flawlessly work anytime a rig is regenerated”. And “animators should never create/delete constraints on top of the control rigs (but always key them when interacted with)”. We also found that using booleans for the parent switch on the custom property are safer than integers or floats, specially when there are multiple slots, to avoid motion-blur artefacts due to the linear nature of these properties. (I.e you can’t switch from slot 2 to 5 without passing trough the intermediates. Even from one frame to another as subframes are a thing in motion blur). Where as Booleans are parallel allowing arbitrarily switch directly to any slot without motion-blur artefacts.
yea specially the last part where he explains due to a Blender limitation the add on dev cant really make a use of old contrains which is kinda bad when it comes to optimization no matter what they say stacking stuff is no good.
Basically, this addon does something I've been doing before manually. Use child of to attach an object, then when you want to turn it off, do a quick bake and remove constrains, copy the keyframe, undo the bake, put influence on 0, and paste the keyframe. It's a huge time saver of an addon
As someone looking to do first person animations for a passion project of mine (or just animations in general), this is a _big deal._ Blender's standard Child Of constraint drives me absolutely _bananas,_ so having something like this in my arsenal will be a _huge_ boon, for real.
Thank for the tut. I wish I saw it 2 weeks ago when I was fighting this issue. My character was flying a hoverbike and had two guns in her holsters. ChildOf constraint didn't work correctly, so I got away with creating two versions of a gun - one in the hand and one in the holster. I attached them to separate bones and set minimal scale for the gun in the holster while the character was holding the other one in her hand and vice versa. Of course it was but a crutch, but it worked
Good creative solution! There is another approach where you can have several copies of the model and keyframe their visibility when you need to switch parents.
It's simple to avoid the issue you ran into without the addon. Keyframe the object on the frame before it's picked up/dropped and right after. You'll forget a few times but that's what you have to do.
there is still a problem though : if you want to edit the position of a parent after baking all your chain of child-parents, well... you can't. You will have to unkeyframe everything, delete all the child of constraints, then restart from the start (or at least from the point you edited a position). just sliding keyframe works though. another problem (fixable): during a parent switch, the child will revert to its original position, then return to it's place. as it happens between 2 keyframes, you won't notice it, but you definitively will if you render the animation with motion blur! the part will disappear for a frame. you can see the between frame movement of the child by engaging the subframes. The fix is to disable the snap to keyframe, then squeeze the child of constraint keyframe as much as possible in the between frame space, and if it is beyond the motion blur setting frame, the motion blur won't pick it. you can also just disable the motion blur (at least for the problematic frame).
I'm using 4.0 Bones deform strangely in pose mode when trying to attach one bone to another using this addon. The prop bone is separated. Any thoughts on what could be causing this or is the addon simple not up to date?
I had to dig into stack exchange to find how the manual method works: When turning off the child of constraint: 1. Key location of Child Object 2. Key Contraint Influence at 1.00 3. Move forward one frame. 4. Apply Visual Transform of Child Object (This is the secret!) 5. Key Location of Child Object 6. Set Constraint Influence to 0.00 and Key it.
Thank you for all the great tutorials! I'm trying to have my Rigified character pick up an item (two parented parts) that, unlike your knife, was never a part of the character model. However, in your video, you have the character rig IK bone parented to the IK bone of an object (the gun). I added a single armature bone to my two-part object and parented the object (child) to the bone (parent), but I couldn't generate a rig. You mentioned in your video that Dynamic Parent only works with IK bones. My question is, how do I give my two-part object to be picked up, an IK bone? What am I missing here?
It can. You don't even need the addon unless there is complex change of parents needed. You just want to have the rigid body parented to the hand (using Child of) while it does the "throwing animation" and enable the Animated option for the Rigid body. Then as the hand releases the body, disable the Child of and also make the Animated option goes from On to Off within 1 keyframe. Not sure if that makes sense but it does work :)
Excellent question. I should have covered this. Yes, you can bake it. The addon itself has a bake option. Below Create and Disable, there is a drop down menu. You have to have all controls that are involved in the animation selected and choose "Bake and clear". Or you can only select the dynamic bone (the pistol in this example) and do a manual Bake Action. Enable: -only selected bones -Visual Keying -Clear constraints -Overwrite current action. As for exporting to a game engine, this has more to do with following a proper workflow for that purpose. My workflows are here th-cam.com/play/PLdcL5aF8ZcJvCyqWeCBYVGKbQgrQngen3.html
@@CGDive Would you be so kind as to add a little addendum to the video to demonstrate the baking options in the addon ? Great stuff, I was hoping for something like that
@@ugu8963 I guess I could make an additional video. Really wish YT would let you edit or replace a video. But of course it's obvious wht they don't allow it.
Hello, great tutorial, I have a question. If I export an fbx with multiple meshes (a character model and a sword model) using this add-on, will it work fine with the sword properly attached to the hand if I export into unity? I've had trouble using default child of constraints in unity
Sorry for the late reply. If it is baked correctly, then yes it will. Check my Blender to Games playlist to learn more about game export th-cam.com/play/PLdcL5aF8ZcJvCyqWeCBYVGKbQgrQngen3.html
Did you watch the first part of the video? I can't show you the problem with ChildOf any more clearly. If it works for you, great. But I want to punch myself in face anytime I try to do anything complex with it.
On version 4.2.2, it does not work, in the sense that it does not even appear in the settings panel, and when you try to reinstall it, Blender sends messages about installing files in the folder with addons, but there is no way to turn it on, do you have any suggestions how to fix it?
I just tested it and it works fine for me. Do this: -download the latest version from the link in the video description -uninstall any currently installed version of the addon -close Blender completely and start it again -install the newest version of the addon
That's a good question. I've been thinking a lot about what kind of videos to make. To your question, I don't think it's that straightforward. What's simple to you is not simple to everyone. So I think this is useful to some people. But there are other influences as well. As the channel grows I feel pressured to keep delivering videos at regular intervals. So often I pick some low-hanging fruit that I believe would be useful but won't be too hard to make. This is something I am not that happy about and I am trying to come up with ways to change things. What kind of tuts would you like me to make? I would appreciate the feedback!
@@CGDive attractive character making like "indianimation" or can you make attractive attractive character using cg cookie flex rig I don't want to spend too much time on making character So what can I do please suggest
hahahahahah, this is the funniest comment ever. Tell me you didn't watch the video without telling me you didn't. 1. the manual technique IS a pain and I couldn't even get it to work 2. This is a FREE addon... definitely worth "the money" if you ask me!
![[Blender proposal] Improved Bone Selection](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/N-ajIiIQ8yo/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Blender proposal] Improved Bone Selection](/img/tr.png)
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
Thx for the tut on the really nice and useful Dynamic Parent addon!
Until this addon is officially updated, here is a hotfix that works at least for 4.1 alpha :)
for win 11
Edit the dynamic_parent.py that is in C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.1\scripts\addons
Find the two following two lines! This one now only takes 1-2 args, instead of 1-3
bpy.ops.constraint.childof_set_inverse(C, constraint=last_constraint.name, owner='OBJECT')
bpy.ops.constraint.childof_set_inverse(C, constraint=last_constraint.name, owner='BONE')
to (Just remove the first argument "C" in each)
bpy.ops.constraint.childof_set_inverse(constraint=last_constraint.name, owner='OBJECT')
bpy.ops.constraint.childof_set_inverse(constraint=last_constraint.name, owner='BONE')
Save and then restart Blender
Thanks, pinned!
Happy to help out a tiny bit when possible, cheers!
What exactly does this fix?
I am no coder, but at the time, those small changes made the addon work :)
I guess Blender changed the arguments required for that command for 4.0 and newer, and "broke" addons using it.
Now it's not needed, as the addon is now officially updated, 6th of december 2023, with exactly those line fixes!
I use this addon ALL the time, absolute necessity when animating. A few tips I've learned while using it:
1. Parenting is opposite of default blender, that is, you must select the Parent object THEN child object. Default blender is opposite.
2. If you pickup the object multiple times with the same parent, you want to make multiple dynamic parents, instead of keyframing the influence on/off of a single constraint.
3. The default keyframe type is Bezier and auto clamped. setting them to Constant will help with drifitng issues.
4. When you're using with a rig, handing the same object off between (eg hands), can give the "select two objects" error. You may need to use an intermediatary empty, or a manual child of constraint.
Other than those small caveats it's a great add-on!
Perfect, thanks!
I am using the new update, 2.0.1, for Blender 4.0. It seems #2 now happens automatically and #4 is not longer an issue. Hooray!
In our studio we developed our own method for these situations without 3rd parties by building all the desirable slots in the metarig itself. Our philosophy is “Every animation data should flawlessly work anytime a rig is regenerated”. And “animators should never create/delete constraints on top of the control rigs (but always key them when interacted with)”. We also found that using booleans for the parent switch on the custom property are safer than integers or floats, specially when there are multiple slots, to avoid motion-blur artefacts due to the linear nature of these properties. (I.e you can’t switch from slot 2 to 5 without passing trough the intermediates. Even from one frame to another as subframes are a thing in motion blur). Where as Booleans are parallel allowing arbitrarily switch directly to any slot without motion-blur artefacts.
What a relief! I thought, after years, I was the only one who didn't get how "child of" works! Thanks for this!
On the surface, it seems like such a nice, little, innocent and simple constraint. But once you start using it, hair pulling is guaranteed :D
@@CGDive Ah-ha, you're absolutely right!
I can't believe we NEED to rely on an addon to do this VERY BASIC thing! in any case, thanks a lot for the addon maker, this is a godsend.
yea specially the last part where he explains due to a Blender limitation the add on dev cant really make a use of old contrains which is kinda bad when it comes to optimization no matter what they say stacking stuff is no good.
I remember trying to do this the normal way and being so frustrated. Im so happy this exists!
Basically, this addon does something I've been doing before manually. Use child of to attach an object, then when you want to turn it off, do a quick bake and remove constrains, copy the keyframe, undo the bake, put influence on 0, and paste the keyframe. It's a huge time saver of an addon
This should be a native tool in Blender. It saved my life a few times :)
Amazing and straightforward addon, saved me a huge amount of work on a tight deadline! Absolute legends!!!
As someone looking to do first person animations for a passion project of mine (or just animations in general), this is a _big deal._ Blender's standard Child Of constraint drives me absolutely _bananas,_ so having something like this in my arsenal will be a _huge_ boon, for real.
holy mother of gods... god bless you and the legend who made that addon
Cheers, mate!
Thank for the tut. I wish I saw it 2 weeks ago when I was fighting this issue. My character was flying a hoverbike and had two guns in her holsters. ChildOf constraint didn't work correctly, so I got away with creating two versions of a gun - one in the hand and one in the holster. I attached them to separate bones and set minimal scale for the gun in the holster while the character was holding the other one in her hand and vice versa. Of course it was but a crutch, but it worked
Good creative solution! There is another approach where you can have several copies of the model and keyframe their visibility when you need to switch parents.
It's simple to avoid the issue you ran into without the addon. Keyframe the object on the frame before it's picked up/dropped and right after. You'll forget a few times but that's what you have to do.
Can you share the exact workflow, step by step? I tried hard but can't wrap my head around it.
I managed to do. Keyframing and using constant interpolation worked for me. Still prefer the addon tho :)
Very simple yet an extremely helpful addon! Thank you for your showcase, this will definitely save a lot of time during the animating process!
You're very welcome!
as always you give the community the best add on
I have had this add-on for over a year but never figured out the parenting process with a control rig like rigify or ARP
thanks for this tutorial.😁
Fantastic!
When you see it, it all seems so simple 😀
3:37 This sentiment is too relatable XD
I know, right?
superb video explaining the issues including & the perfect complex rig demo to showcase this GEM of an addon!!
there is still a problem though : if you want to edit the position of a parent after baking all your chain of child-parents, well... you can't. You will have to unkeyframe everything, delete all the child of constraints, then restart from the start (or at least from the point you edited a position). just sliding keyframe works though.
another problem (fixable): during a parent switch, the child will revert to its original position, then return to it's place. as it happens between 2 keyframes, you won't notice it, but you definitively will if you render the animation with motion blur! the part will disappear for a frame. you can see the between frame movement of the child by engaging the subframes. The fix is to disable the snap to keyframe, then squeeze the child of constraint keyframe as much as possible in the between frame space, and if it is beyond the motion blur setting frame, the motion blur won't pick it. you can also just disable the motion blur (at least for the problematic frame).
Addon is now officially updated for Blender 4. I had missed it so much that I went back to Blender 3.6.5!
I'm using 4.0 Bones deform strangely in pose mode when trying to attach one bone to another using this addon. The prop bone is separated. Any thoughts on what could be causing this or is the addon simple not up to date?
This is dope wtf, addons are wildlly useful
Yep! :)
Please make a video about how to attach cloth to animated body and make cloth animated as well.
I had to dig into stack exchange to find how the manual method works:
When turning off the child of constraint:
1. Key location of Child Object
2. Key Contraint Influence at 1.00
3. Move forward one frame.
4. Apply Visual Transform of Child Object (This is the secret!)
5. Key Location of Child Object
6. Set Constraint Influence to 0.00 and Key it.
7. Pray
Thank you for all the great tutorials! I'm trying to have my Rigified character pick up an item (two parented parts) that, unlike your knife, was never a part of the character model. However, in your video, you have the character rig IK bone parented to the IK bone of an object (the gun). I added a single armature bone to my two-part object and parented the object (child) to the bone (parent), but I couldn't generate a rig. You mentioned in your video that Dynamic Parent only works with IK bones. My question is, how do I give my two-part object to be picked up, an IK bone? What am I missing here?
Awesome thank you❤
Blender addon install but not showing addon . Please help
I don't know why, sorry 😞
i wonder if theres a way to work it with a rigid body sphere.. to animate throwing a ball or something that bounces after
It can. You don't even need the addon unless there is complex change of parents needed.
You just want to have the rigid body parented to the hand (using Child of) while it does the "throwing animation" and enable the Animated option for the Rigid body. Then as the hand releases the body, disable the Child of and also make the Animated option goes from On to Off within 1 keyframe. Not sure if that makes sense but it does work :)
Love this addon but it doesn't seen to work in Blender 4.
I'm sure it will be updated in due time.
нужная инфа спасибо автору
Would this animation work after exporting to fbx? Can you recommend an easy way to bake this animation so that the gun keeps working ?
Excellent question. I should have covered this.
Yes, you can bake it. The addon itself has a bake option. Below Create and Disable, there is a drop down menu. You have to have all controls that are involved in the animation selected and choose "Bake and clear".
Or you can only select the dynamic bone (the pistol in this example) and do a manual Bake Action. Enable:
-only selected bones
-Visual Keying
-Clear constraints
-Overwrite current action.
As for exporting to a game engine, this has more to do with following a proper workflow for that purpose. My workflows are here
th-cam.com/play/PLdcL5aF8ZcJvCyqWeCBYVGKbQgrQngen3.html
@@CGDive Would you be so kind as to add a little addendum to the video to demonstrate the baking options in the addon ? Great stuff, I was hoping for something like that
@@ugu8963 I guess I could make an additional video. Really wish YT would let you edit or replace a video. But of course it's obvious wht they don't allow it.
@@CGDive BTW, would the "bake action" of GRT take care of the baking of those constraints automatically ?
@@ugu8963 yeah, it should because it bakes the Game rig which is just constrained to the Control rig.
Thanks Man!!! So Awesome :)
Glad to help!
why is not support on blender 4.0?
I haven't tested it but many addons break when a new blender version is released. It will be fixed later.
@@CGDive It has been updated to work in blender 4+.
Just tested it in 4.2 and it works fine.
Hello, great tutorial, I have a question. If I export an fbx with multiple meshes (a character model and a sword model) using this add-on, will it work fine with the sword properly attached to the hand if I export into unity? I've had trouble using default child of constraints in unity
Sorry for the late reply. If it is baked correctly, then yes it will. Check my Blender to Games playlist to learn more about game export
th-cam.com/play/PLdcL5aF8ZcJvCyqWeCBYVGKbQgrQngen3.html
Maybe I'll discover that later, but, what is the problem of using "Child of" instead? It can be animated... But maybe I will discover that later.
Did you watch the first part of the video? I can't show you the problem with ChildOf any more clearly. If it works for you, great. But I want to punch myself in face anytime I try to do anything complex with it.
thank you sir
good video
Glad you enjoyed it!
On version 4.2.2, it does not work, in the sense that it does not even appear in the settings panel, and when you try to reinstall it, Blender sends messages about installing files in the folder with addons, but there is no way to turn it on, do you have any suggestions how to fix it?
I just tested it and it works fine for me. Do this:
-download the latest version from the link in the video description
-uninstall any currently installed version of the addon
-close Blender completely and start it again
-install the newest version of the addon
Holy cow
can we make spiderman hook rope with this addon?
I don't think it's designed for that but I guess it could be part of a solution for the effect you are looking for.
THX 😍😍
You're welcome!
You are great 👍 bro
But why are you making these simple tutorials
That's a good question. I've been thinking a lot about what kind of videos to make.
To your question, I don't think it's that straightforward. What's simple to you is not simple to everyone. So I think this is useful to some people.
But there are other influences as well. As the channel grows I feel pressured to keep delivering videos at regular intervals. So often I pick some low-hanging fruit that I believe would be useful but won't be too hard to make. This is something I am not that happy about and I am trying to come up with ways to change things.
What kind of tuts would you like me to make? I would appreciate the feedback!
@@CGDive attractive character making like "indianimation" or can you make attractive attractive character using cg cookie flex rig
I don't want to spend too much time on making character
So what can I do please suggest
@@CGDive I think those simple fundamental tutorials are a blessing to get into blender animation. This is such a dark forest otherwise.
The manual method was a few more steps, he made the manual method look like a headache. Not worth the money, sorry
hahahahahah, this is the funniest comment ever. Tell me you didn't watch the video without telling me you didn't.
1. the manual technique IS a pain and I couldn't even get it to work
2. This is a FREE addon... definitely worth "the money" if you ask me!