I have a rather simple six-legged model that I’m having some trouble rigging. I have a particular way I want my low poly legs to fold up and eventually I got everything moving just right with one armature that contained the mesh and all the bones for a single leg.
I figured I could just copy all of this 5 times, rotate them into place, and be done. However, I’m running into an issue when I try and combine all of these armatures into a single I can animate together.
If I just select all of my leg armatures, then the master armature, and hit parent suddenly all the leg meshes move into the same spot. My bones stay where they were, but they no longer move the same way (or affect the geometry at all).
What am I doing wrong and how can I fix this and avoid it in the future?
I tried renaming all of the things in one armature, but that doesn’t seem to help.
You do not join armatures by parenting them. You join armatures by joining them-- with multiple armatues, inlcluding an actively selected armature, in object mode, ctrl j probably.
When the names of bones change, you also need to change the names of vertex groups associated with the names of those bones on the mesh object.
Add new bones in edit mode.
You should also make all the creature one object. Otherwise @bandages wise suggestion about joining the Armatures together will fry your brain when you realize you need to apply the same Armature to each body section… One body / One Armature.
It is unfortunate that so many tutorials show people scaling things in Object mode. It gives beginners a bad habit that leads to problems like this - where you are thinking of the Armature as a series of separate entities, when they are actually all joined.
Think of the other name for an armature - skeleton. Then it is more relatable to real life.
You do still parent bones to others - but (usually) within the same Armature.
Here is a clue about the tutorial makers to avoid. If they scale something, then apply the scale, then go into edit mode - stop the video. Go watch someone else. They should be going into edit mode before scaling. its safer (correct results for modifiers and simulations without having to remember to apply the scale) and its one step less.
For your critter… Its a good idea to have the top of the body bone poking out the top. Makes it easier to select. Alternately, add another bone that is called the Root bone lying on the ground (and is used to do the moving). Make that the parent of the body bone. It is easier to select when animating the movement. In the future with more complex rigs you will want the root bone to move while the body bone rotates or jumps or whatever.
Welcome to the forums. good luck with the animation…
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