Dynamic Parent

Dynamic Parenting is the ability to have an object switch what it is attached to in the middle of an animation. Common examples include:

• a character picking up an object and putting it back down or throwing it
• a character passing an object to another character
• a character holding e.g. a sword with the right hand and passing it to the left hand
• a characters hand moving freely to grab another part of the body such as the head, after which the hand starts moving with that body part
• the list goes on…

While these may sound simple on paper, achieving convincing parent switching in 3D animation is a technical challenge. Thankfully, a variety of addons have been developed to help us with this task.

By far the most popular tool in this category is the Dynamic Parent addon. It is free and does the job well. Some of the other addons in this category are paid while doing more or less the same thing as Dynamic Parent. They are presented for completeness or in case this free addon stops working but Dynamic Parent should be your first choice.

However, you’ll also find addons that achieve a similar effect but using a different approach.

“Animation Snapper Pro” uses quick animation baking to create the illusion of “parenting” between objects while in reality nothing gets parented or constrained at all. This is a very elegant solution that can be easily exported out of Blender. Next to “Dynamic Parent”, the Animation Snapper is my favorite addon in this category because it has additional uses in Mocap clean-up.

The “Grab-it” addon on the other hand, also creates the illusion of parent switching, but it achieves it by creating copies of the child object and hiding and unhiding them when the parent switch occurs. This can also be an good solution to this problem.