Vertices won't attach to correct bone

[pullhairout]I have a model that won’t attach to the right bone.[/pullhairout]

It’s an axe, a separate mesh from the psycho wielding it. The character in question (of questionable character) is rigged fine (sloppy knees, elbows and shoulders but that IS another story).

The weapon is parented correctly to the armature - moving the armature poltiely moves the weapon. Attaching it to the wrong bone, eg. using the vertex group ‘Hand_R’ works, but then can’t change the direction the weapon is pointing in - for example with an arrow instead of an axe the arrow is between the thumb and index finger, not suspended in the handle-sized hole in the loosely-clenched fist.

The same thing happens when it’s parented to a different armature - I’m using a basic armature for simple posing and a detailed armature with a billion bones and constraints, with the same name for the bone, and it doesn’t work on that one either, except in the wrong vertex group.

‘Weapon_L’ doesn’t work either, so he can’t just be left-handed.

I triple-checked the name in both the vertex group and for the bone, removed the vertex group and parent, and ressigned both.

There are no name conflicts, and only one vertex group for the axe. Some vertex group names work and some don’t. ‘Deform’ is set (#@^$#@%^, it wasn’t, so I was hoping…)

Clueless and facing a guy with an axe,

Dave Heinemann

Odd - clicking ‘Envelopes’ off and on, then ‘Deform’ off and on again worked.

Who’d have ever thought to turn on ‘Envelopes’ (for any reason)? Useless - it should check the direction of the normals, and bias heavily in the opposite direction (towards the closest bone inside the mesh), but doesn’t…

Back to it…
Dave Heinemann.

Instead of trying to rig your prop to the character’s armature, make it a more flexible prop by using a hook on the entire mesh . Just add an empty at the point at which the character would hold the axe, i.e. the handle . And then with the empty still selected shift-select the axe mesh and tab into Edit Mode for the axe . Select all the vertices and hit Ctrl-H -> Add to Selected Object .

Now you have a prop that can only be manipulated by the empty . To get your character to grab the axe just use a Copy Location/Copy Rotation constraints on the empty targeted to a bone or a child empty of a bone …

You could just parent the empty to the axe and lock all transform values too if you wanted …