• Adobe After Effects

  Can I Parent a Puppet Pin to a Null Object?

  Posted by Jason Nelson on January 28, 2014 at 4:29 pm

  I have an animation I’m working on with a stick figure holding a cell phone in their hands in front of them. Each of the arms of the stick figure has 3 puppet pins (shoulder, elbow, wrist), and I’d like to parent/pick whip the wrists and cellphone to a null object so I can animate them in sync to give the impression that the character is texting. I know I can parent the entire arm, but I just want to parent the wrist puppet pins so that the shoulders stay still but the elbows slightly bend to make it look more natural. Is what I’m wanting to do possible? I’ve attached a picture so you can see what I’m talking about.

  

  George Goodman replied 12 years, 6 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Ridley Walker

  January 28, 2014 at 5:46 pm

  See this:

  https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/227/12111#12115

  Not directly parenting but using an expression to connect the pins to the nulls. Read down the thread to see Dan Ebberts solution.
• 

  George Goodman

  January 28, 2014 at 7:13 pm

  Use Duik

  Inverse kinematics is pretty much a standard for this type of thing. You move that controller (the hands in this case) around and the arms stay in place and rotate naturally. It’s also great for walk cycles.

  Watch the tutorials. It doesn’t take too long to get the hang of.

  https://duduf.net/?page_id=151

  “|_ (°_0) _|”

  Sincerely,

  George

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