I have a few meshes that I grouped together. Its a helicopter with a few simple polygons, but I it together using different objects so I could put different materials on them. I grouped them together and I’m just trying to do some location and rotation key animation. When I move the group in blender though it leaves part behind and funny stuff happens when working with it in blender. But when I render it it all seems fine. Is there a better way to group some stuff together and have it animate?
there are SOOOOO many ways.
For a helicopter, I would Parent the rotors to the frame, the rotors being the child, so that I could rotate the rotors without moving the body. But if i moved the body, the rotors would move as well. I would not make them the same object mesh.
I did that exact thing but when I try to animate it funny things happen. So I move the body and the blades won’t move but it shows the parent dashed arrows still. When I render the animation it blades follow the body just fine, but when creating the animation it doesn’t work right at all. I’m just using that latest 2.42 version. I just thought I was doing something wrong.
You’re still on frame one (or whatever) of the anim and the blades are keyframed to stay at that Loc and at that Rot.
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I wish I could show you, but I’ve only keyed the parent body and I’m on frame 30. I guess I’ll figure it out. Thanks though.
different objects so I could put different materials on them
You can put multiple materials on the same object.
I wish I could show you
You could post a blend file.
I have a few meshes that I grouped together
If you really grouped them, then this will have nothing at all to do with their movement. Grouped objects move completely independently of each other (grouping has to do with other things, such as how objects can be appended and how lights can be associated with materials). Do you mean you parented them?
No, I think he means he grouped them. It’s just that grouping them doesn’t do what you’d think it would in Blender.