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  • Bone with Transform Constraint Stops Following Parent Movement

Hi, I’d like to set up the "sync with L" bone with a transform constraint to copy the movement of the "L" bone. The bones S, M, and L are child bones of the green cross-shaped bone. Here’s the issue:

When the green cross spins, the child bones orbit around it as expected.
When I add the transform constraint to "sync with L," it follows the "L" bone correctly.
However, I need these two behaviors to work simultaneously. Specifically, I want the "sync with L" bone to follow the circular orbit of the "L" bone while "L" moves. Currently, "sync with L" stops moving when the transform constraint is applied.

I’m trying to make many bones follow a circular path without setting them up manually. Did I make a mistake, or is it impossible for a bone with a transform constraint to follow its parent’s movement?
Thanks🙂))

PS: I don’t think it’s an issue with the constraint order, but I still tried changing the constraint order of "sync with L" to both the top and the bottom. It didn’t work.



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It seems like the issue you're experiencing is related to the way transform constraints and bone hierarchies interact. When you apply a transform constraint to a bone, it modifies the bone's transform based on the target bone, which can override the natural movement of the bone within its hierarchy. In your case, the "sync with L" bone is constrained to follow the "L" bone, but this constraint might be overriding the natural orbiting movement caused by the parent bone's rotation.

To achieve the desired behavior where "sync with L" follows the "L" bone's movement while also orbiting with the parent, you might need to adjust the constraint settings or hierarchy. One approach could be to ensure that the transform constraint is set to only affect certain properties (e.g., translation) and not others (e.g., rotation), allowing the bone to inherit rotation from its parent. Additionally, ensure that the constraint order is correct, as constraints are applied in sequence, and the order can affect the final outcome.

If these adjustments don't resolve the issue, consider using a combination of constraints or additional bones to achieve the desired effect. For example, you could use an intermediary bone that inherits the rotation from the parent and then apply the transform constraint to this intermediary bone to follow the "L" bone.

To add to what Spinebot said, you may need to combine this with the local and relative checks, but I'm not completely sure I understood your objective without a clear visualization.
Yuo may know that if you set a constraint to 100% mix of a property, it will completely override the constraints applied before it, so it may cause an interference.
More about it here:
https://esotericsoftware.com/spine-constraints
If trying these solves your problem, super! If not, if you could please go more in detail in your request, it would help immensely in trying to understand, thank you!

    Erika
    Hi, I followed the advice from Spine AI and tried adjusting the constraint order from top to bottom in the constraints list. I also experimented with the rotation value at both 0 and 100, and checked the "local" box as suggested.

    What I’m trying to achieve is:
    I want the "sync with L" bone to move along the green circular orbit, just like the "L" bone moves along the red circular orbit.
    (For context: the "L" bone orbits the green cross, similar to how Earth orbits the Sun.)

    I hope the attached picture helps clarify what I’m aiming for. The picture contains the parent/child relationships and the current constraint settings.

    Thank you! 🙂
    ![

    • Изменено

    I dont know if you can see these pictures.
    ![
    ![
    ![

    • Изменено

    Hi I can see the pictures when I edited this post. Now they seems disapper.
    Here are the original links of pictures:




    I don't know why...I can't see any thing on chrome but i can see them on firefox...
    And the chrome doesn't show links in the newest comment. but the link first comment show links normally.

    • Misaki ответили на это сообщение.

      yang123456789 This case is very interesting. I have found a way that would probably work as a workaround, but it would require two transform constraints. The behavior is shown in the video below:

      In this rig, a bone Target is added that is at the exact same coordinates as the L bone but moves via a transform constraint, and the Sync with L bone moves with this target bone as its own transform constraint target. It is a bit complicated, but with this rig, the resulting Sync with L bone will move according to the movement of the L bone.

      The reason I came up with this workaround is that when I set the target bone for the transform constraint in Sync with L to the L bone, the constraint seemed to be applied to the Sync with L bone before the result of the position change of the L bone was received. Then I thought it would work if I created a bone that would receive the result of the move and set it as the target. Technically, I think it has to do with the timing of the calculation of the bone's world transformation, as explained in the manual: https://esotericsoftware.com/spine-constraints#Bone-transforms

      The Spine project shown in the video is here:

      circumferential-movement.spine
      651B

      It may not be a very clean solution, but I hope it is helpful.

        Misaki
        Thanks! 🙂) I was able to recreate the movement based on your example. It works perfectly. Thank you so much!