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I am trying to learn about rigging (Blender beginner, and have only done a couple of simple examples so far), and have the following model:

enter image description here

The effect I am looking to achieve is for the letter "t" to bend down and appear to pick up the ball. Then finally I would like it to jump away with the ball, with some squash and stretch effect on the whole body of the letter as it jumps.

So far I have created an armature with some bones and used this as an armature deform for the mesh:

enter image description here

Now I have two problems:

  1. Due to the shape of the letter "t", I would like the arms to stretch out beyond their resting size, so that they can reach further to get the ball. Is there a way to add a stretch feature to the arms only?

  2. I don't know how to add a global squash and stretch control to this armature, in order to achieve the effect of the whole body stretching as it jumps away. I guess I should add a large bone vertically somehow through the armature with a "Stretch To" constraint to a small bone at the top? The letter isn't symmetric, so I'm not sure of how to arrange the bottom part.

Is the right approach here to try to add more bones for stretching?

enter image description here

File here:

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  • $\begingroup$ "normally" you can just change this value to >0 then it would work, but in your case if your arms both have ik controller at the end, and are going to the bottom of the t, it won't work. If you have just one IK controller to one arm, it works. [1]: i.stack.imgur.com/3xAlF.png $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Aug 25, 2022 at 8:12
  • $\begingroup$ @Chris Thanks for your comment. At the moment I haven't added any IK controller - only the bones you can see in my screenshot. Are you saying I should add an IK controller to one arm? Can you add an example? Sorry, I'm struggling to understand... $\endgroup$
    – teeeeee
    Aug 25, 2022 at 8:27
  • $\begingroup$ Yes I would recommend using IK because then you can control the mesh with an empty. Select in pose mode the last bone at one arm, shift I - to new object. Then go to object mode and move the created empty and enjoy 😉 $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Aug 25, 2022 at 8:50
  • $\begingroup$ @Chris Okay I see. But you cannot reset the position of the empty like you can if you moved it in Pose Mode? $\endgroup$
    – teeeeee
    Aug 25, 2022 at 9:02
  • $\begingroup$ You could use a workaround bei setting a keyframe of location to the empty at frame 0 or 1 $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Aug 25, 2022 at 9:52

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