Having armature affect a mesh AND its children

I have rigged a character, and he animates fine. However, he is holding a gun which I want to move with his hand. Must I make the gun a child of the armature as well, or is there a way to parent it to the hand mesh?

When I try to do it this way, the gun does not rotate with the hand. Just to get it to work, I tried making the gun a child of the armature, and everything moved fine. However, now I am adding a laser sight to the gun, and I want it to be a child of the gun, rather than having to make it a child of the armature. When I try making the laser sight a child of the gun, translation works fine, but it does not rotate as the gun is moved by the armature.

I appreciate any help.

I think you have to parent it to the armature.
Do they need to be separate objects? otherwise you could just join the meshes (result would of course be the same as above but with fewer objects)

hey sim,

I’d prefer not to combine the meshes. I have several objects:

  • an “empty” called “barrel”, which represents where bullets fire from
  • a laser sight mesh
  • an “empty” called “sights”, which represents the destination point of bullets

I’d like to simply make “barrel” a child of the gun, and have the other two be a child of “barrel”. That seems like a more elegant hierarchy. Of course, if it can’t be done, I’ll settle for what I have to.

Found it. I parented the gun to the entire armature, when it should have only been a child of the hand bone.

Thanks for your help!