Animate Picking Up and Putting Down an Object

[jaakay]

Hi All,

Can anyone enlighten me.

I want to animate a telephone conversation between 2 people. One on a normal phone and the other on a mobile. How do you animate picking up an object and putting it down again. Is there a way to parent an object to the characters hand and then unparenting it within an animation?

Thanks in advance.

[wizaerd]

As far as I know, there is no technical way to pick up an item. What most will do is in a switch layer for the hands, have a layer with the item already in the hand. So draw out the item, duplicate it in a new hand switch layer. Then when the character goes to pick it up, turn off the main items visibility and change to the appropriate hand and item switch layer...

[jaakay]

Hi Wizaerd,

Thanks for the response. I was going to try that as an idea out of my head, trying to work out how I could achieve this but wasn't sure if there was some kind of parenting hand to object option that I hadn't seen before. OK so I'll go the switch layer route.

Thanks again

[wizaerd]

Thanks for the response. I was going to try that as an idea out of my head, trying to work out how I could achieve this but wasn't sure if there was some kind of parenting hand to object option that I hadn't seen before. OK so I'll go the switch layer route.

Thanks again

No problem. I've asked this same question a few times here, and in other forums for other animation applications. I only know of one program (2D) that allows for this capability, (temporarily re-parenting a bone) but it has fewer real capabilities when it comes to other aspects of animation.

The switch layer works well, and is a fairly standard technique for characters manipulating/holding objects.

[sbtamu]

Here is one way. Its in AS7, if you have 6 and can send it as 6. Look at the way I duplicated the receiver of the phone and used invis.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/cdc630

[jaakay]

Hi Sbtamu,

That technique is great. Thank you very much.