Animating Pivots for Characters
 
 
 

The object pivot is the position about which objects are scaled and rotated when playing back animation. You can change and animate the object pivot, such as for creating a rolling cube.

NoteThe object pivot that you can animate is not the same as the pivot you use in the 3D views (by pressing the Alt key) for manipulating objects.

Because you cannot directly animate the transformation of an object's center, you often create a null, parent the object to it, and then animate the null (see Animating the Transformation of Object Centers [Animation]). This is a quick and easy way to work for effectors in a skeleton or other objects, but for bones there is a problem. The bones in a skeleton hierarchy cannot be cut from their parent object so that you can insert a null and parent the bone to it. Using the object pivot, you can offset and animate the bone's pivot regardless of its parenting.

For information on using and animating the object pivot, see Working with Object Pivots [Working in 3D Space].

These are some other possible uses for pivots in skeletons: