Linear motion - part 2

Here are some screenshots that will hopefully help you through the steps.

Here is the high quality hydrolics thingy I created.

I imported into CH as a puppet (no rigging yet), then clicked the create scene button. See how the artwork is too wide (goes off edge of scene).

I changed the Transform scale to make it fit in the window. (I had to reduce it to 30%!!)

But I have not done the rigging yet, so I double click on the puppet so the middle big area changes from "Scene" to "Puppet".

I added the Transform on the nested layer (like you did correctly) and renamed mine to Rod Transform.

Oh, those little yellow dots - they are handles. Single click on one when in Rig mode and hit the DEL key on your keyboard and it will delete the one you selected.

I double clicked on the scene again in the project panel, which goes into Record mode and brings the scene panel back to the front. The timeline is at the bottom, and because I have the puppet selected (which is why you single click on it, if its not selected) - you can see the two transforms over in the right properties panel.

I am going to hit POST here and keep going in a following post - sometimes I hit a size limit 😉

I will try to do a video. You are doing the right things, but i was doing it from memory. The problem was the main screen did not leave the puppet view. There is a scene view you needed to flip to in the main area.

The reason to do the 50% scale is puppets frequently start too big, so you scale them down (as you did, but still looking at the puppet and not the scene). But you need to flip the main panel to the scene window to see the changes take effect. 

Cool! Yes, you seem to have the puppet structure correct. Yes, those behavior drop downs are the same, you can use either. I suggest you add a Transform behavior to the rod. I will explain more in a moment.

First thing to understand is you have CH in rig mode. You can do anything there (drag etc) as it is like the editing mode. You cannot stop movement there. You set everything up in this mode, then later you go to the record or stream mode to use it. At that time you drop the puppet into a scene and position it relative to other things in the scene. So don't worry about not stopping things in rig mode. You never want to move things there actually - it can mess things up if you change the artwork later.

What i suggest you do;

1. Add a 'Transform' behavior to the rod layer 

2. Go to record mode and Create a scene and drop the part puppet into the scene. You may have to use the top level transform to scale it smaller to fit. (Click on puppet in timeline panel, look for top level transform behavior in properties panel, change scale value to 50% at a guess)

3. In the record mode, find the second transform you added (you can rename it to make it easier to find) and change the position x value. It should move sideways as you adjust it. Work out the smallest and largest values you want for the rod at the two end positions.

4. Go back to rig mode. Open up the "Controls" panel (you can open it from the windows menu) then select the "layout" tab (next to 'Perform"). Drag the 'position x" label from the properties panel of the transform behavior to the control panel area. This will give you a horizontal slider. There will be a little number in both bottom corners. Click and change the numbers to the min and max values you want for position x from step 3. Using this dragger will then move the rod horizontally, with min and max values.

5. To record in a scene, select the puppet in the timeline, go to perform tab, and drag the slider to move the rod. It will change position x for you, making sure you don't go too far