Animating grouped meshes with shape keys I have designed a model composed of multiple meshes (a palmtree with a trunk and some large leaves) and would now like to animate it using shape keys.

I parented those under an Empty so that I can handle them easily, but I would not like to join them as a unique mesh at this time since I may need to perform some editing later (materials, etc.; I understand that I should not modify topology for shape keys to work properly).

Still, my understanding is that shape keys are specific to each mesh, and that anyway I can only animate one mesh at a time, since only one of them can be on edit mode at a given time. I tried to lift that limitation with the MultiEdit plugin, but shape keys are still tied to one mesh.

It seems tedious to deform each sub-mesh one by one, and I would like to have a unique, shared set of shape keys for easier animation.

What would be an efficient workflow for such an use case? Is definitely joining the meshes the only way?
To make object change its shape while animating complex movings like trees it's better to use rigging with Armature modifier than the shape keys.

Shape keys are generally used as an additional geometry changer working together with armature, i.e. they aren't armature substitution. They aren't as flexible as rigging because they can be added to one object and thus edit only that object; also one has to define the final form of the object initially in order key to work.

To animate a tree moving it's a good idea to rig that tree. Create a skeleton for it, use any method to skin a tree and create some poses for the tree leaves and / or trunk.







Note: When creating tree with Sapling: Add Tree addon it's possible to add an armature for the tree: