reparent bird to hand

[cynthia]

Hi Moho Geniuses,
I have a bird fly in and land on Frida's hand. Now I want to lower her hand and have the bird go with it, but I can't seem to reparent the bird to her hand. the hand bone doesn't come up as an option when I try make her hand bone a target. If I try the reparent tool it won't parent to the hand bone either. Maybe it's the way I've nested the groups?

Tiny pic doesn't seem to be working for me. Here's a link to a screenshot of my moho workspace. https://www.flickr.com/photos/8901012@N ... ed-public/

Here's a link to the bird landing on Frida's hand. https://vimeo.com/227580491

Many thanks for any advice you might have.

[synthsin75]

Looks like you need a bone in the arm layer that you can layer bind the bird layer to. Then you can reparent that bone to the arm when needed.

[cynthia]

Looks like you need a bone in the arm layer that you can layer bind the bird layer to. Then you can reparent that bone to the arm when needed.

I'm trying to parent the bird's leg bones to the hand bone (B51), but the target dropdown only has parrot bones in it, no Frida bones. This screenshot shows bones and the bone constraints dropdown.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8901012@N08/36087467192

What do you mean by " that you can layer bind the bird layer to"

[synthsin75]

Again, it looks like you need an extra, unparented bone in the "Frida ARM far & parrot" bone layer. Bind the "blue parrot fly" bone layer to that bone and reparent that bone to the arm when needed.

OR...you could target a bone, like you want to do, IF all the bones are on the same layer.

You can't do both.

[Greenlaw]

If you insist on keyframing the bone parenting, I would put the whole bird into its own 'bird' group, then drag that into the 'girl' group, and bind it to a 'bird' bone. This bone can then be parented the hand when it lands on the hand bone. Tip: enable Independent Rotation for the bird bone. This will keep if from rotating with the girl's hand motions, which should look more natural. (You can still add some secondary rotation the bird bone, if necessary.)

Personally, I prefer to just switch the visibility between two elements, one free-moving and one parented at frame zero. I find this approach is simpler and more predictable when addressing changes to the animation later.

[cynthia]

If you insist on keyframing the bone parenting, I would put the whole bird into its own 'bird' group, then drag that into the 'girl' group, and bind it to a 'bird' bone. This bone can then be parented the hand when it lands on the hand bone. Tip: enable Independent Rotation for the bird bone. This will keep if from rotating with the girl's hand motions, which should look more natural. (You can still add some secondary rotation the bird bone, if necessary.)
Personally, I prefer to just switch the visibility between two elements, one free-moving and one parented at frame zero. I find this approach is simpler and more predictable when addressing changes to the animation later.

Oh not, I'm not insisting. Just stuck for a good solution I think I did what you recommend in the first paragraph. If I'm understanding correctly, I think Synthsin recommended something similar which I tried several times, but obviously not correctly. Will try one more time. I can't seem to get a link between the two characters even though the bird is inside the girl group.

Having 2 birds -Brilliant! Greenlaw, thank you very much for the switch suggestion. This I understand.