Turn Parenting on and off?

Deke

Is this possible. For example, animating a character picking up an object. I'd want the object unparented, then parented to the character's hand, then perhaps unparented again when the character sets the object down again.

Richard Haseltine

No, not in Daz Studio. It isn't that long ago that even the heavyweights lacked this, and then it became a checkbox for new features a few years back.

benniewoodell

Yes you can do it in a workaround. Do the whole animation how you want it but don't worry about the object in hand. Then parent the object to a null or empty (I forget how daz calls it). Render the animation to the last frame before the character picks it up, like they should be grasping it. After it's rendered, parent the null object to the hand and render the rest out and it should work. I found if I just tried to parent the object, it always moved when I parented it for some reason, but doing it by a null object worked good most of the time. If anything, it's a slight adjustment that would be hidden in the movement anyways. 

benniewoodell

Or another way I've done it is place the object where you want it and duplicate it. On the frame where you want it picked up, key the object that will stay in their hand, then go back one frame and set the Y translate to like 100000 or something huge. Now when you go back one frame, it's in the clouds, but go forward one frame and it's where you want it, parent it to the hand and you're good there. Now with the duplicate, on the frame before the hand picks it up, key the cup on the table, and on the frame that it's grabbed, set that Y translate to 100000. So now in that one frame, you've switched the stationary one with the parented one and no one will ever know. 
I hope that one makes sense. I had to do it a lot that way for the job I was doing the past few years.