Question How do I constrain translation/rotation on particular axis in robot legs?

Using IK, I need to restrict the motion of particular axis as per the image below:



1. needs to translate along X and rotate around Y.
2. needs to translate along Y but no other angle.
3. needs to rotate freely

My setup is:


The only constraint I have is the IK one and moving the target moves as you might expect - adding other animation constraints makes no difference.

I have tried adding constraints of other types in the order of precedence listed here.

I had some success adding not-animation constraints to the meshes but that only works in a limited way because I need the bones to be constrained, not just the meshes.

I was hoping for a robot arm (or cartesian 3D printer) example because that should solve the problem but I can't find one. Furthermore I can't get any of the examples here to load. No official answer on a similar question here.

Using Unity 2021.3.12f1, Animation Rigging 1.1.1

How would I go about setting up the constraints/bone structure/model for this?

Many thanks in advance.

 

I found a solution using Animation Rigging. Here it is working:




If you're using IK, you can partially constraint specific bones (using the standard non-animation rigging constraints) but the IK solver (either chain or 2 leg join) will override them.

So don't use the IK system. Instead, rig your machine from "tip" back to "base" (using the language of robotics). For my mechanical ladybird, that would be foot back to hip. That not how you would build it in the real world but you can fake it this way so it looks good enough.

The hierarchy is:


Note that the foot and middle are not parent/child. They are controlled separately. Also note that the order of the Rig Constraints (FootFollow, MiddleFollow...) is extremely important as they are calculated in top-to-bottom order. Constraints lower down the chain override constraints further up.

Here are some of the constraints - hit image limit, more in reply.

 

Here are the remaining constraints. The angle for the top is set using a "look".



Frankly, I would prefer to use IK and put limitations on freedom of movement on each bone as that's more intuitive.

I hope this helps someone!