Jonas Pilz covers how to switch parents in Cinema 4D using the Constraint Tag dynamically.

Usually, in 3D a, the hierarchy consists of one parent and any number of children. Sometimes in animation, you want to have a child have multiple parents—a character picking up something from the scene into a hand, for example.

This new quick tip tutorial from Maxon Training Team’s Jonas Pilz (@jonaspilz3d) shows how to facilitate dynamic parent switching in Cinema 4D using the Constraint Tag. There is a bit of a trick to set it up correctly and how to animate parent switching. The example in the video shows robot hands handling a simple ball object.

More on Animating Parents in C4D.

Aleksey Voznesenski at Ace5 Studios did a tutorial covering ways to stick a prop into a character’s hand in Cinema 4D. There are some situations where it is not as straightforward as using one constraint and then calling it a day. Take, for example, having a character use a vacuum cleaner. You don’t want to key the arm hand and vacuum individually because it would take forever to manage all those positions and keys. Visit that tutorial here.