Grab and hold item during animation?

[named tiger]

To make a character grab an item, and hold on to it, rather than holding it from the get-go. I think I have an idea on what to do, but should I lock the item and hand together before hand or after grabbing? Doing the former makes it follow the paths of the hand anyways, but I tried messing around with the Playhead bar on the motion editor which did nothing.

[Capt Fuzzy]

I would animate the hand reaching for the model that it's going to grab, then at the moment the hand gets to the object, lock, and continue with the animation from that point...

[Paintbrush Poltergeist]

Originally posted by Capt Fuzzy:

I would animate the hand reaching for the model that it's going to grab, then at the moment the hand gets to the object, lock, and continue with the animation from that point...

Pretty much how I'd do it.

Animate demo for example going to grab a bottle of Whiskey.
As his hand goes over it, and his fingers wrap around the bottle, I'd blade the shot, then lock the weapon bone to the hand and zero.
Then resume animating the demo picking it up.

[named tiger]

Alright I did that. But when I zero it in, it doesn't follow the hand around. It moves around like it faintly follows the animation of the hand but stays in its posistion otherwise.

[Capt Fuzzy]

Originally posted by Pretty Tony Tiger:

Alright I did that. But when I zero it in, it doesn't follow the hand around. It moves around like it faintly follows the animation of the hand but stays in its posistion otherwise.

Sometimes that happens, when it happens you may just have to animate the whole thing manually...
I'm gonna do a guide on how to do this, I will post it when finished...

[named tiger]

I see.. well I just found a work-around by using duplicates and manipulating visibility in the mean time, but look forward to your guide as well.

[surfer171]

You can actually try to use the pseudo-lock method I figured out somehow but haven't gotten to try it out on the final phase of animating in SFM that is to smooth out the animation. The pseudo-lock is basically to ctrl click in selecting bones, that's all.

Why ctrl click on the bone names? Think of it as a graph editor animator's way to compensate for the incapability of having to be able to lock item once and the problem with those subtle counter animation before being locked (it sometimes happen). Just make sure you have your rotation set to world and make sure that you select the prop's root transform bone first followed by the hand so that way you can rotate your character's hand while keeping the bottle still being held on to.

[_Pho3nix__]

Originally posted by Momento Mori:

Originally posted by Capt Fuzzy:

I would animate the hand reaching for the model that it's going to grab, then at the moment the hand gets to the object, lock, and continue with the animation from that point...

Pretty much how I'd do it.

Animate demo for example going to grab a bottle of Whiskey.
As his hand goes over it, and his fingers wrap around the bottle, I'd blade the shot, then lock the weapon bone to the hand and zero.
Then resume animating the demo picking it up.

What does it mean to blade the shot?

[Dr. Plague]

https://lmgtfy.com/?q=sfm+blade+shot&pp=1

[Paintbrush Poltergeist]

Originally posted by _Pho3nix__:

Originally posted by Momento Mori:

Pretty much how I'd do it.

Animate demo for example going to grab a bottle of Whiskey.
As his hand goes over it, and his fingers wrap around the bottle, I'd blade the shot, then lock the weapon bone to the hand and zero.
Then resume animating the demo picking it up.

What does it mean to blade the shot?

Press B on the clip editor (I think, it's been years since I used SFM) and it splits your shot from that point allowing you to edit things like above much easier.

[R234]

Don't blade the shot, that could cause various issues. I explain the proper method here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1840/discussions/0/3158630999999474186/#c3158630999999779358