How to make rotating hinge always follow tilting of connected bone?
The title might be hard to understand, so let me explain.
I have this robot character I'm designing in Blender, and instead of using fake ball joints (I want it to be somewhat realistic, and those don't really exist IRL), I'm using these hinges that are meant to rotate to face the direction the bone is turning.
For example, say the head/neck bone is nodding (rotating along Y/-Y). The hinge should just rotate to follow this motion (just bending forward). But if the head/neck bone is tilting to the side (rotating along X/-X), then the hinge should turn to face to the side (so it bends to the side). In short, the hinge should always rotate to follow the direction the bone is tilting.
I've been trying to use a mix of constraints (Dampen Track and Locked Track), but this hasn't gotten me anywhere. I tried having each half target the other, but no matter what I set the axis' to, the hinges only work at some angles (40º and 55º, for example), and then just glitch out or clip into itself at others. What am I doing wrong? If it helps, I'm using Blender 5.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!