Ya, apparently there is an easier way (as Acid Bubbles explained above) to parent/unparent with a toggleable check box.Can you describe this more? I'd like to be able to have one figure move an appendage (arm/hand - leg/foot) toward another figure, who will then grasp that appendage - then have physics make the grasping appendage follow the movements of the grasped one. Acid Bubbles makes it sound like Timeline is incapable of doing this - but it sounds like that is what you achieved. Did you parent in Timeline or did you parent in VAM control & physics tabs - and what did you use to create the trigger to enable the attach-detach if so? I was trying to go about it in this latter manner - and couldn't figure out how to make a trigger to parent/de-parent a particular controller to another like this.
Part of the problem is that it is complex to even describe.
I was making a Trigger Event in Timeline, that was simply selecting the handcontrol and toggling parenting on and off (toggling between Parent and Hold On) near the beginning and end of the motion I wanted to occur. So effectively there was two Trigger Events, one to disable parent, and one to enable parent, so that the hand could do it own thing for a bit, and then return to looking like it was holding the thigh/hip area. But this only ended up working correctly because the object that it was parented to, was not in a Active Hold state (ie. it look like a Red cube, instead of a Green one). If it was indeed in a hold state (green), then this would not have worked.