Temporary Bone Attachment

I am currently working on an animation of a model which is holding a weapon in its hand. During this animation I want the weapon to be detached and stuck into the ground for a short while, then picked back up at the end. I was curious if it was possible to "temporarily" attach the two bones (one on the weapon and one on the hand of the unit) and unattach them later. Any help would be much appreciated.

Note: I am using 3DsMax 5

Isn't possible, far as I know for Warcraft. Check the Priest model; they used different geosets and geosetanims.

It's not like that how things like these are done.

Here's how it goes: make a copy of the weapon, unlink it from everything and perfectly align it with the weapon holded by the character in the moment you want the weapon to fall. Then add a visibility track (with an on/off controller) to both weapons. After that, first insert a key at frame 0 for the weapon copy, so it will be invisible for other animations, and another key to the time you want the weapon to fall. With the original weapon, set a key only when you want the weapon to fall. And so you'll get a perfect blending (you can animate the weapon copy independently).

Oh, and theres no need to make a bone for the weapon.

Sounds great, I'll get on it right away. Thanks a bunch.

What if the weapon's poly count is quite high? You would have problems if you need to duplicate it. (This happens to be the case here)

it dosen't matter, you'll never see both models. when one is visible, the other is not. Oh, and if you're refering to file size, then dunno, never concerned me.

Works like a charm, thanks for your help.

no prob dude

TDR Ive tried that method and after the origninal weapon(in this case) dispears the the copied weapon will appear but itll be very small and will get to its original size quickly but itll be noticeable, so the resulting animation wont be smooth, I recoment using scale here

as far as I know, that scaling issue won't be visible in-game, I did that many times.

I do not notice any scaling issue whatsoever, in Max, Viewer, nor in-game.

Likewise, both models, the original and the copy, are the exact same size, so I don't see why this would happen. Well, it doesnt happen in my animation at least.

really?? I dont know why the hell that happened in my models...so all my models use a combination of scale anim + visibility...I hav lost much time...

Did you clone the first weapon directly to make the second? And what are you using? 3DsMax or something else?

mmm Ive tested this, with 2 object each one with a bone and each bone only had visibility keys.
-When I had the change of objects in the fist animmation everything was fine n smooth
-When I had the change of objects in lets say the second anim there was that jumpy transition. BUT only in the first loop of the animation, after that first loop everything was smooth(If u press the repeat animation key the animation jumps again).

Im attacing a .max file if u cant believe me, also theere is a chance that I am wrong, if so I would like to know what am I doing wrong.
Test it pls, If u delete the first stand note keys ull see that the change is smooth again in the animation.