Hello all,
Blender newbie here. After literal years of trying, I finally got a character modeled and rigged! However, I am having a problem. As my character is very blocky, I do not want the shoulders and hips to move the torso. I am not selecting them when I parent the model to the rig. How would I go about fixing this? Thank you so much for any help!
Hi,
I don’t think Blender uses the bone selection when assigning weights…, it just uses the whole armature. If you need more control, use “empty groups” and assign weights by hand, either in edit mode or in weight paint mode
It seems like you have earlier had the torso object parented to the armature. So the torso is probably parented already to the armature, or at least it has an armature modifier. The way that rigging works is that when you parent a mesh into an armature with automatic weights, Blender will automatically add an armature modifier to the character mesh. This armature modifier is what actually makes the character deform, it makes the vertices of the mesh to follow the bones of the armature. This deformation (which bone moves which part) is normally done with vertex groups. Weights are actually vertex groups, and weight amounts define how much percentually each vettex belongs to each group (0-100%). So if the torso still has an armature modifier and vertex groups left, it will continue deforming. If you ever want to re-rig a character it’s best to first unparent it, remove armature modifiers and delete all vertex groups. After that the model is “clean” to be rigged again from scratch.
And because weights are vertex groups, you don’t always need to use automatic weights or weight painting to create them. If there will be only one bone moving the whole torso you should do this: You can also just go to vertex group list, click the plus icon to create a new vertex group, and give it the name of the bone that you want to move it (it has to be exactly the same, with all capital letters etc similar). Then you can select vertices that you want to assign into it and click the add button (or assign, don’t remember exactly). Then you can just parent the torso to the armature with the basic ‘keep offset’ function so that it will not create any other weights. Then go to modifier list and add an armature modifier. And in the armature slot you can select or use the eyedropper tool to set the correct armature to be the rig of the mesh. 
Thank you all so much! @digitvisions ’ method worked perfectly! I really do appreciate the help, as I had never even seen the weight painting tab before. Cheers!
