I have created an arrow in CAD and imported via .obj into Blender. This arrow consists of: a shaft, three feathers or fletching, a knock and a broadhead. I've animated the arrow shaft to shoot across the screen and abruptly stop. All the objects (fletching, knock & broadhead) move nicely with the arrow shaft whether they have been parented or joined to the shaft. Now I want the knock end of the arrow to oscillate as it would in real life when it first hits the target. So I set up a shape key on the knock end of the shaft and added a modifier within the graph editor, set its limits and a fade out. This works perfectly for the arrow shaft but the other objects such as fletching and knock do not follow the oscillation path whether they are parented or joined to the shaft. How do I make these other arrow parts follow the shaft oscillation if parent or join won't do the trick? Thank you in advance to anyone who might be able to help.
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$\begingroup$ sounds a lot like a job for a simple rig or a curve modifier. Oscilation without script is hard, but animating a single bone can be done with f-curve modifiers. $\endgroup$– Frederik SteinmetzMay 15 at 19:56
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$\begingroup$ Thank you for your quick response @Frederik. It was quite easy to apply an f-curve modifier and it provides the exact animation I'm looking for. But why won't parts (the knock & fletch) that are "joined" (with the join command) to my arrow shaft oscillate WITH the arrow shaft which is oscillating quite nicely? If I press G and grab the arrow shaft all its components move with the shaft. $\endgroup$– RonMay 15 at 21:29
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$\begingroup$ I'm going to answer this directly, so you can mark it as solved. If it doesn't fix your problem, just let me know. $\endgroup$– Frederik SteinmetzMay 16 at 8:15
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1 Answer
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Shapekeys aren't the way to go here. Either create a simple rig using 2-3 Bones and automatic weights and not animating the bone that would deform the tip. You can then use f-curve modifiers (e.g. cyclic) to create an oscillating motion. A curve modifier might get you the same results without creating a rig, but it's harder to control
Anyways, if you are creating a rig with vertex weights, make sure all objects are joined before adding the armature modifier (with automatic weights). Or that you assign the ones that should be moving afterwards.
answered May 16 at 10:39
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$\begingroup$ Thank You @Frederik Steinmetz. As a Blender tyro, I have never even used an armature or bone up to this point. I am late at responding because I have limited time to work with Blender and it took me a while to get the rig to work. But thanks to you I now have my oscillating arrow with the knock and fletching moving with the shaft! Thanks again for your help! Ron $\endgroup$– RonMay 20 at 17:13