might be the wrong spot for this question… i read around and i couldn’t find anything similar anywhere. but please let me know if this issue has been addressed somewhere else.
anyway… im a blender newbie and im trying to make a bendable segmented tube/ thing and each end will have a different object on it. (but thats not the trouble)
my trouble is that for some reason what works in one instance isn’t working when i apply it on a grander scale…
i have a segmented pipe with a bone for each segment… auto IK is on and as far as i know the IK chain length is as high as i can go. (couldn’t find the place to enter that number manually… just used the mousewheel in pose mode when trying to pose the model). but the armature refuses to move when i select the last bone and try to position it, and thus my mesh doesn’t deform at all. however i have tested this with a smaller mesh and fewer bones and it works fine…
anyway… im hoping one of you blender pros will be able to slap me and tell me what ive done wrong. 
alternatively if there is an even better way to do what im trying to do please don’t hesitate to let me know.
the largest hurdle in adopting blender is learning the efficient work flow and technique
Attachments
arm-dev.blend (454 KB)