Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Advanced Tutorials/Advanced Animation/Guided tour/Const/index

The Constraint
A constraint is what makes everything easier, magic, automatic, customised (add more words here) in a rig. It tells a bone or an object to do something special based on the position of another object, and the position of the constrained object itself. There are many constraint types for you to play with. Most will work everywhere but, the IK solver will only be available in the Armature Editmode or Posemode.

There are no strict rules to follow when using constraints. As long as they save you time and make everything work by itself. A constraint should never be "time-consuming" or difficult to use. Think about the animator who is going to work with this rig (it could be you!). So, do everything in a smart way. It's possible to copy constraints from one object/bone to a bunch of objects/bones. A useful thing to know when doing a repetitive task like rigging all the fingers of a hand. Just select all bones/objects that you want to give a copy of the constraint, and then select the bone/object containing the constraints. Press SHIFT + CTRL-CKEY in 3DView, and select Object Constraints from the popup menu. The idea behind this is to copy the constraints of the active object to the selection.

When working on an armature in Posemode, the bones will change color if they contain a constraint. Green for almost all, except for the IK constraint, which turns the bone Yellow.

The Constraint Panel
You can add a Constraint to an object or a bone by going in Object button window(F7) for objects and bones. Look for a Constraint panel like this (note, it's usually empty):



The panel also appears in Editbutton(F9) when you are in Armature Editmode or Posemode. So what you get:
 * A button to add a new Constraint. The choice you have is listed down this page.
 * When you add a new Constraint, A block gets added in the stack. The UI is almost the same as the Modifier Stack. Each block represents an entry. You can delete it with "X", move it up or down in the stack, close or open it.
 * Constraints are evaluated from first to last. So if you have two Constraints working on the same channel, let say Location, The last one will most probably win the chance to move the object. But...
 * Most of the constraints have an influence slider to determine how much it will influence the stack. If the last constraint has an influence of 0.5 it will mix the result with the one before.
 * You can animate the influence of the Constraint by moving the time, changing the Influence slider and adding a key with the Key button.
 * The Show button will display the influence IPO curve in an IPO window for editing. (The IPO window must be opened before pressing the 'show' button).
 * You can change the name of the Constraint by clicking on the name when the constraint is open.
 * By Clicking on the white jacket of the Constraint you select which one is active for edition, same as "show" button.
 * If most of the Constraint you can enter the name of the Object you want to work with as a target or reference. For a bone, you need to enter in which Armature object it is, then an other field for the bone name will appear. When filling those fields, remember you can use autocompletion using TAB.

The Constraint Index

 * Copy Location
 * Copy Rotation
 * Track-To
 * Floor
 * Locked Track
 * Follow Path
 * Stretch-To
 * IK Solver
 * Action