I Have this animation and having trouble making the ray gun stick with the character when I do an array.Enemy alien robot with gun running 2 blend.blend (1.35 MB)
If they are all going to do the same thing, put the armature and meshes into a group and add group instances. Here I move your camera and lights to another layer. Put everything else in a group and you add a group instance anywhere you want. Here I even put one upside down for you. botgroupinstance.blend (1.33 MB)
Wowie…could you explain in a simplier way, I am in my 80ties and hard to conjure things. i.e, putting the armature and meshes into a group…explain this
and add group instance…explain…appreciate it.
So you did not use the Array modifier?
You make a group by selecting the object(S) you want in your group and control G - create group. You can then use select group for any number of variations. At the bottom of the 3d window you can add a group instance. If you want your robots moving say arms different. Just select your group. Duplicate it and then assign a new action to the new armature within that group in the dope sheet or nla which ever you use.
Your making it too hard.
Blender reference manual is a good place to start.
The nice thing about this is that using an instance doesn’t load up your computer with meshes. It is just an empty that carries the link to the mesh. Very efficient. I do groups walking and stuff like that with it. You can do many of these and it will still play nicely on a small computer.
Just google blender groups. and group instances. If you need to assign a different action to some of your groups. Be sure to duplicate and make a new group. The objects like the armature will just have the same name with the next number appended to it. IE armature.001 etc. That is what you assign your new action to.
One thing is that it is confusing because people understand arrays, but not group instances that well. Once you try it you will like it.
Your computer will love you for it.
Forgot to mention if you want to make an instance you created real so you can animate it, then you can use control shift A to make the instance real. It will then be just like you duplicated the original if that makes sense.