Procedural animation of armature

But this leads me to a whole new working package. I happen to have one single object with dozens of vertex groups which are connected at the places where they need to be connected according to our CAD model.
I've attached an armature and everything works just fine with rendering the table. Now my aim is to use the same data, without only minimal work on it (e.g. new material colors, because I previously used Cycles materials) to get a nice web visualisation.

You say, this needs way more work to get it done, then?

If I think of characters instead of CAD objects, it's not possible to do this with several objects, right? You have to use armature animation to interactively move the arm around, for example.

Unfortunately, for now we have only one solution for you. We have a small technical meeting on your question tomorrow morning. You will need to make all your details as separated mesh. For now, it's only a possible way to move them proceduraly. In the future we'll implement functions that allow you to do the same directly with armature. It's in our TODO list.

So, what result did the meeting have, when will this be on your todo list?
Right now I am converting every detail into several meshes.
What do I have to be careful about at this? Can I use constraints?

So, what result did the meeting have, when will this be on your todo list?

The result was the colclusion that your task at this moment can be done only using separated objects.
The function that you need, that allows you to mode bones proceduraly well be in the next of the engine release.
Constrains are not supported. They are will be helpful only if you will bake all changes that it maked to object animation and then use this animation in your project. You will need to be careful with non-uniform scaling, engine allows only scale in 1:1:1 ratio.

Thanks for letting me know.

The function that you need, […] will be in the next of the engine release

That sounds like this is in the next few weeks/months. Is that feasible?
So I am stuck with parenting everything together, then… or is there something I did not take into account then?

That sounds like this is in the next few weeks/months. Is that feasible?

Unfortunately, but it will be a month later, not in the release that will be on the next week. You will need to wait a little, it's a summer and many of us gone to the vacations, so we have much work but don't have enought hands to do it. We really work hard and trying to do all we can. It very comlex task for implementation.

I see, thanks for the answer!
So if you stick with your schedule this huge feature should arrive in late September, right.
That'll be awesome

So if you stick with your schedule this huge feature should arrive in late September, right.

Yes, we plant it to the september.