How to unlink duplicated objects?

I have version 2.42a which Im sure youre all familiar with.
Following the gingerbreadman animation tutorial
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Your_First_Animation_in_30_plus_30_Minutes_Part_I

it says to make small spheres and then copy them with SHIFT + D
which all works fine
But then the objects are all linked and named the same so when you selct one they all get selected.
The tutorial calls for coloring some of them seperately, but there’s no way to do that while they’re linked. I want to unlink them so I can select them individually. :eek:

In Edit Mode select the part you want to separate and hit the P hotkey . Select the first option . Now you have a separate mesh/object .
You could also leave them as one object and create vertex groups to give them separate materials … but one tutorial at a time .
BTW the objects are not linked they are one object when you Shift D in Edit Mode . Just pointing that out because object linking is something else altogether …

1 Like

thanks you know what youre talking about!
I see I messed up and made the duplicates in edit mode now. Thanks alot.

There’s a difference between Shft-D in Object mode (duplicates the Object) and Edit mode (duplicates the Mesh so you have two identical parts of one mesh on one object).

%<

1 Like

Hey if anyone has the time to asnwer, its alittle offtopic but I ran into one more problem with this tutorial that I could not solve.
When I was making the poses and saving them to frames, the paste flipped pose button would reverse the position on my arms but not my legs.
anyhow i saved it to the fame with “I LocRot” as the tutorial said to do for the first frame but neglected to say if that option is correct for the other frames. anyways once I realized the animation was wrong I tried to change it by fixing the pose and resaving, but it would never rewrite the old frame. How do you delete frames of the animation that arent correct and start again without loading an old save? Also what might it be that caused my right legs and left legs bones to not reverse?

You Keyframe (I-Key, LocRot) the first pose at frame 1, copy that pose, advance frames and Paste Flipped Pose. The leg bone suffixes may be wrong; .l, .r. .L, .R or _L, _R all must be correct for the Paste Flipped to identify left from right.

To delete hit K in PO window, select a Keyframe and X, or in the Action window box-select a vertical row of Keys and X. To scrap what you’ve done hit X on the IPO Datablock to unlink the Action, do Alt-R, Alt-G and Alt-S with all bones selected in Pose mode. Search in the Anim forum for “Actions” to see how to remove unlinked actions from the file.

%<

Hey Flight I must have trouble understanding some anacronyms or initialisms. I got the
animation to work right, I had apparently missed the . in .L etc thanks.
Press K in PO? which is a PO?

Press K in PO? which is a PO?

That’s just a typo . Fligh means IPO window (curve editor) . It is a window type that you can bring up from the Window Type Menu . Technically I guess it is called “IPO Curve Editor” .
Just split an area and open it up and follow Fligh’s instructions .

ok thanks for all the help. Im more interested in scene rendering right now than animation but I just wanted some base knowledge in it in case I decide to take on any projects later. =D remarkable help here.

So why is it that when I duplicate an object (in object mode) by pressing Shift+D my IPOs are linked between the two objects? If I remove my anim data on the copy, it removes it from the original and vice versa. I thought by pressing Shift+D in object mode, it prevented that? Same thing happens with Alt+D in object mode. I need to know how to make a fresh, separate, unlinked object and I thought it was possible in object mode.

Thanks.

I’ve had the same problem myself and just figured out the solution (from reverse-engineering a tutorial on how to link them together). To separate the animations (the ISOs), select the object you duplicated, go to the 3D view menu: Object: Make single user: IPOS. You can also bring up the menu by pressing U on the 3D view screen (and 5 to select IPOS).

I have no idea why linking animation is default, but it’s much less frustrating when you know how to unlink it…