Hi there,
I’m one of the many that’s super fresh on the Blender scene. I noticed people helping others with this apparently common problem - failing to assign automatic weights when you try to parent an armature to a model with automatic weights. Can anyone tell me what I did wrong here?
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=50918
I promise I’m not trying to avoid due diligence, I’ve seen a few YouTube vids and tried reading documentation on this, but this still kinda leaves me stuck.
Hi
As you can see on the picture you have loose geometry. (what I did : selected a vertex, ctrl+L to select linked and then hid those faces)
to fix the problems delete the unecessary faces and separate the eyes and mouth into a separate object. Then the auto weigths should work.
You can then rejoin the eyes and mouth and set up the weigths for them manually.
Thanks so much @mzprox!
That does in fact make sense, I’m keeping that for future reference. One bonus question. I have a new file attached:
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=50920
Can you explain to me why the automatic weights:
1.) Only assigned weight to the LEFT leg
2.) Doesn’t actually deform the mesh when you’re moving the bones
I appreciate you a lot, thanks again!
This topic can be confusing so I recommend watch some tutorials.
For the first question: you have weight for all the bones actually.
Do this: select the armature, ctrl+tab to go into pose mode, select a bone, now shift select the body, press ctrl+tab. if you do this you will be in weigth paint mode but you can still select the bones (and thus the vertex group)
As for the second question… I don’t know… very strange but apparently the bones are not moving in pose mode… I will take an other look.
ok, found the problem:
Down, on the header look for two options: one for pivot selectro and next to it the manipulate center point. The latter should be turned off, then you can manipulate the bones in pose mode. The pivot is also important, set it to active element for example… it depends on what you want but for animating it shouldn’t be the 3d cursor.
@mzprox, thank you again for your response, they’ve been super helpful.
One other thing, I re-uploaded this file:
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=50922
I joined the “loose parts” back to the body after examining the now bone weighted parts of the body and being able to move them… and now I can’t move them again. Is that because of the loose parts that are still attached?
when joining the objects make sure that the body is the last one you select. I think you added the body to the eyes and that way you simply lost the armature modifier. You can easily put it back: select your character, add an armature modifier, and within the modifier (in its object tab) select the armature. Then it should work again.
Hey @mzprox, ever converted a mesh to a bone object as PART of an armature? I know earlier you informed me that I needed to separate loose parts from the main body of the model before applying the simple armature with automatic weights. However, I was hoping to convert those loose parts (besides the mouth and eyes) to BONES and join them to my simple armature so that, say, I can already have bones being used to move the fingers of the hands. Have you ever done anything like this before? Any suggestions?
I guess technicaly you may join two meshes with their corresponding armatures (if that’s what you’re asking), but I’ve never done it.
The way you do this:
first parent the main armature with automatic weights (if you want some of the bones to not have any weights at this phase, even temporary, you must uncheck the deform option in the bone tab for those bones)
Then join the rest of the mesh parts, add new bones to the armature if needed.
then manually create the missing vertex groups and weights where needed. (actually there is an option somewhere to add a new bone with auto created vertex group, but i don’t remember it’s name)
Ah okay. But there’s no way to turn a mesh part into a bone itself? I heard of a plug-in/converter that turns a bone into a mesh or something but not the other way around
