Arm blade animation help

[Anonymous]

Hello there, I have a project I am working on and Im not sure how to accomplish what I would like to do. I am new at rigging but I have a pretty good understanding of 3D Studio Max.

What I am trying to do here is I have created a character for a 3D film I am working on who has forearm blades. I would like the forearm blades to retract into the body and extend out of the body as shown in the picture. The blades in the scene are a separate object from the rest of the mesh.

I do not know how to accomplish this. As I said I am new at rigging and I have followed this workflow here Rigging a Character and have the exact rig setup for my character. 

Any help is greatly appreciated and whoever replies in helping will have their name listed in the special thanks of the film if they wish. Thank you in advance!

[hazmondo · Accepted solution]

Best thing to do probably would be to link the blade to the arm bone (or the most relevant twist bone if you're using them) and then use a series of morph targets to make the blade appear as it is retracting. Specifically, you'll want to look into "Progressive Morphs".

-Harry

[Anonymous]

I did link it to the first forearm twist bone, I'll see if I can find anything on a progressive morph target, if you have any workflow suggestions or tutorials to lead me in the right direction that would be appreciated! I thank you very much for your reply!

[Anonymous]

I ended up figuring it out looked up some progressive morphing tutorials and finally got it to work, thank you again Hazmondo! Id like to include you into the special thanks section of the credits if you wish. 

[hazmondo]

That's very kind, but you don't have to - I'm sure it was a small part in your rigging process.

[Anonymous]

It was a small part but it's a huge part of who this character is, so it was pretty important to me! 🙂 How would you like to be credited? The name of the animation is called The Shadow Dragon, you can check out progress at www.youtube.com/moonlpro Thank you again! 🙂