Hello Vito,
This sounds like a good topic for a video tutorial.
Animations like this can be done in VEA or imported from dedicated animation systems like Maxx and Maya. They cannot be imported from CAD, however. I find it is generally easy enough to animate it using "Forward Kinematics" in VEA. As many parts as you like can move at one time and the placement of pivots and the scene tree hierarchy are very important to create these types of animations.
Like with all animations in any animation system getting the timing right is part of the "art" for realistic animations and can take some trial and error to get just the right believability. We are also looking at possibilities to making these easier using orientation constraints in the future as one idea.
We have had a few request for an "Inverse Kinematic" animation system where the user could set up all the necessary constraints and then just grab the bucket at the end of the arm and move it and the arm and associated cylinders would bend accordingly. There just haven't been enough use cases for this yet to warrant creating such a tool.
Are you trying to animate something specific? Maybe I can help.
Regards,
Adam
FYI - VEA is the newest version of Deep Exploration.