I’ve made a groups with the same names as the bones in my armature, but how do I parent it so that the armatures move the vertex groups? Also, in pose mode the armatures only move in blocks, they don’t hilight or rotate. How would I make it animatable?
Hello.
You don’t need to parent the mesh to the armature. You can use an armature modifier and select the “Vert. Groups” (which seems to be selected by default). You can also disable “Envelopes” if you still experience trouble.
If you need to check that the vertex groups were indeed created correctly, you could deselect all the vertecies in the mesh and select the vertex group (use the “Select” button in the vertex group section).
This is strange, the only reason I can think for that is if you selected the root bone.
I hope this helps.
I’ve hilighted the bone that shares a name with the Legs VertGroup, but what panel do I need, I can’t find the ENVELOPES or VERT. Groups thing. Also, what is an armature modifier?
Try having a look at these following pages from the Wiki Manual:
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/PartII/Modifiers
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/PartIX/The_Armature_Object2
I tried what the wiki told me, but couldn’t find any of the commands. The boxes were strangely empty.
What does this mean, and which commands couldn’t you find?
It’ll be quicker to tell you what I could find:
Link and Materials:
AR:Armature F OB:Armature
Armature:
Rest Pos
Draw Axes
Draw Names
X-Ray
Delay Deform
That’s all on the edit tab.
The Armature Modifier controls (which are specific to the mesh, not the armature) are found in the Editing Buttons (F9). There is a tab called “Modifiers”. If your mesh has an armature modifieer, it should be listed with the controls (e.g. the Envolope and the Verts. controls).
You were looking at the editing window of the armature.
So, in short: To see the Armature Modifier (instead of what you have described), you should select the mesh. You should still go to the Editing buttons.
Hey Chris99 - Just ckecking the obvious: Armature modifier isa fairly recent addition. Are you using version 2.41?
Armature Modifier ( and i think Envelope technique) is a recent addition.
Its better in the sense that you do not need to parent the mesh to the Armature.Its the job of new Armature modifier.
You make a Mesh ( say Human ).
Now you need to Modify(deform) the Mesh with something.
You can do this well with a smack of Baseball bat , but better
put a Armature (Skeleton) inside the mesh and now the different
bones of this Skeleton can “Modify”(deform) your mesh. Since this
Armature can deform your Mesh , it is called ArmatureModifier.
Be sure to give ArmatureModifier the name which you assigned to
the Armature itself .
A Short How to :
1)Select the Model and add one ArmatureModifier.
2)In the OB: field , enter the name of Armature that will deform the model.Enable the Envelope button too.
3)Now select the Armature,Enter Edit Mode,and in the Armature panel
, enable X-Ray and Envelope buttons.A Dark area enveloping the
bones will appear . It is the influence zone that will control which
vertices will be deformed by the current selected bone
4)You can change this influence zone in 2 ways—
i) Select the bone and scale to fit your requirements.(S key)
ii) Edit Dark area only with Alt + S
5) Now , in Pose Mode , if you select a a single “Bone” of the Armature(Skeleton) and rotate it, the Mesh will follow the Bone
That’s cool for thin meshs like arms and legs.
I’ve had to rig a tortoise recently and found that an envelope large enough to effect the whole neck would deform the front legs etc.
Solution? Vertex groups! You can tell Blender which vertecies are effectes by what bones:
It comes down to names. In the Armature modifier, turn on the Vertex Group option. Now a bone called for instance Shin.L will move only the vertecies in the group named Shin.L.
How do we make a vertex group? Well in this case, you go into edit mode and pull up the mesh buttons.
Now, under Vertex Groups click “New” and in the name box that comes up, call the group “Shin.L”
Now select the verteces that form the mesh’s left shin and click the “Assign” button. This assigns the selected verts to the current vertex group.
Make sure you deselsct the verts before assigning the next lot as a vert can belong to multiple groups.
Make a simple mesh like the Gingerbread Man in the Blender Manual and play around with this.
I only had 2.34, I’m now downloading 1.41 to be able to use the features. I’ve moved the braincellstory.blend1 file to another folder, so I can now finish.
Thanks, it now works. Wheeee!
Hi,
I’m also a complete noob and am trying to deform a simple mesh with the armature modifier.
I have no problems doing it the old way with parenting the armature to the mesh.
But when I try it the new way, with an armature modifier, I can not get the mesh to deform.
I followed all the steps VickyChauhan has described.
So I must be doing something wrong.
My question: could someone please point me to a tutorial which describes the steps to take to get an armature modifier modifying a mesh?
Thanks and see you.
EDIT: OK : I got it working, I forgot to enable the Envelope button too.
Having enabled it, now it works.
See you…