what method to choose?

hi, I’m trying to animate one inanimated object. robot.
the problem is, he consists on several small parts, stuff that is parented (not joined) to the body… and then there are the body parts, parented to another body parts… so I can kind of move him…

should join everything together, and use armatures for moving.
or, should join just some stuff, and keep arms, legs and head etc separate, and add several armatures?
or should I not use armatures at all?

I tried the last option, but I got some very wicked behaviour on rotations, he basicly disintegrated and then assembled himself back to the new pose :slight_smile: I used 10 frames in between the keys, so maybe that’s too much or… ??

anyways, questions is, how would thiskind of object be best to set up and animate?

I’m talking about marvin the paranoid android, I did little while ago, pics can be found from Finished Projects forum…

thanks!

.b

If it were me, I would definitely use armatures. Before you begin, you’ll have to do a couple of things. First, you’ll want to unparent all the little pieces (Alt-p), keeping the transformations. Some things may move around, so you may have to rejigger things. Then select all of your objects and do Ctrl-a to apply sizing and rotations.

Now build your armature entirely in editmode (DON’T go into pose mode (Ctrl-Tab) to tweak things). Once you have it build, select all and do, I think, alt-N to align the bone rotations properly. Leave editmode. Ctrl-a your armature to apply size/rotation. Link/rig your armature with IK contraints, etc.

Finally, when you parent your objects to the armature, make sure you use Bone mode.

This should avoid your model disintigrating when you animate via armature.

BTW, I’d do this all on a copy :smiley: .

thanks! I was in #blenderchat and “mnme” told me about the fact that you can parent to bones… funny I didn’t know that even :slight_smile: I had always used just the “armature”. which in this case would look stupid.

I’m gonna try tonight to set it up. thanks for the tips on apply-rotations too! does it mean, that the current position of object will be then the default/start position?

if you want to laugh, here was my test with only parented objects, without any bones. after I saw the outcome, I decided to post my question here … heh…

divx: http://basse.no-ip.org/tmp/marvin.avi

hehheh…

.b

That’s a cute little robot, hope you’re getting the hang of it!