I’m learning how to use armatures to move my models, but I’ve run across a problem.
On a character model I’ve made, I made the eyes as a seprate model. I parented the eyes to the rest of the model so that they move with it-- no problem, but when I go to move my character’s head via the armature, the eyes remain floating in their own location, rather than staying connected to the head. What can I do to solve this?
Making the eyes children of the character mesh as an Object (which is what it sounds like you did) means that they move only within the local space of the mesh Object. The mesh itself, under Armature control, has its vertices moving in the Armature’s local space – the two “spaces” don’t always coincide, as you’ve discovered.
The solution is to put your eyes under control of the Armature as well, so they and the rest of the character mesh share a common space for transforms. Multiple objects/meshes can be linked to the same Armature, so riggers usually build eye controls into the same Armature as that controlling the rest of the mesh. The rigging can be with bones that are part of the same rig as the body, or can be a separate armature that is a child of one of the main armature’s bones (frequently the head/skull bone).
The main point is to insure that the Armature controls the transforms the eyes go through, rather than the mesh Object.
What chipmasque said is, as always, 100% on spot, but if I may simplify this a bit…
When I first learned to rig a character, I didn’t learn to use bones on the eyes. Instead, I learned to parent the eye meshes to the head bone, so they move with the bone, not the mesh. Since the character’s mesh moves with the bone, so do the eye meshes.
Randy