I am trying to figure out how to use armatures, but any tutorials I find online assume I am a blender god already and that I can read the author’s minds.
Basically, I have a cube with 2 vertex groups, named one and two.
Cube & bones:
The selected is one, the unselected is two.
I want the two bones beside the cube to move one vertex group each, top bone vertex group ‘one’, bottom ‘two’.
Unfortunately, I have absolutely no clue how to do this.
After the tutorials, I am now even more confused.
If these guys tried to tell you how to open a door, instead of telling you ‘turn the knob and pull’, they’d tell you something similar to ‘Use the circular motion tool preprogrammed into your brain with your palm to make the knob move in the correct direction, and then read newton’s physics laws and go to a trigonometry seminar and use the information to figure out how to open the door.’.
Can someone please explain to me how to do this in English?
Edit: Image link failed, I will attempt to explain it:
Basically, it is a 16 verticle cube, which is actually a normal cube extruded twice, and each vertex group is 8 verticles.
The armature is basically two bones, one extruded from another, the two bones are by the vertex groups.
The main requirement is that the mesh (cube) has to have an Armature modifier.
The modifier can be added “manually” by selecting the cube then choosing armature from the Add Modifier button in the modifiers panel (in the edit buttons (F9) ).
After adding the modifer the armature name needs to be put in the Ob: field of the armature modifer.
An easier way to add the armature modifier is to select the mesh (cube), then SH-select the armature then press CTR-P for the parent operation. Then … (in this case since the vertex groups are already created), you’d choose “Don’t Create Groups”.
If you hadn’t created any vertex groups in the first place, then you could choose the “Create from Closest Bones” option".
(In current SVN releases the options have been changed to “Create from Envelopes, and Create from Bone Heat” … I assume that the 2.46 release versions have these options … I don’t have a 2.46 rc yet).
An excellent tutorial is Ryan’s “Intro to Character Animation”, (link in my signature).
thanks for the help, but I still have a problem
I named them exactly the same after parenting the mesh to the armature, but it doesn’t rotate the cube when I rotate the bones in pose mode.
Here’s the order I did the test in:
Create box
Edit
Extrude top
Extrude top
Select top 8 verticles
New vertex group
Name one
Assign
Deselect
Select bottom 8 verticles
New vertex group
Name two
Assign
Object mode
Select box
Add select armature
CTRL+P
Don’t create vertex groups
Select box
Make real in modifiers
Rotate armature – Whole cube rotated with it
Undo rotate
Shift+Tab
Rotate bottom bone – nothing happens but bone is rotated
Rotate top bone – Nothing happens but bone is rotated
Undo
Undo
Fail
Couple of things: make sure you’re in pose mode for the armature by selecting it and pressing CTRL+TAB (you can also choose Pose mode from the selector). Then try rotating the bones.
Next, select your mesh and press CTRL+TAB to enter weight paint mode (you can also select it from the selector). Once in weight paint mode, select a bone. You should see the vertices assigned to it in Red, or a color other than blue. Each bone that you select will show which vertices are grouped with it by shading them a non-blue color (most likely red).
You can TAB into Edit mode right from weight paint mode if you need to straighten out your vertex assignments, or you can paint the weights directly onto the verts.
problem solved:
Order of operations was incorrect, new test fixed, possibly could be due to upgrading to 2.46 10 seconds ago:
Erase box
Create cylinder
Edit mode
Select top
Extrude
Extrude
Extrude
Extrude
Select top section
Vertex group named 1
Select middle section
Vertex group named 2
Select bottom section
Vertex group named 3
Object mode
Deselect
Create armature
Edit mode
Extrude
Extrude
Pose mode
Named top bone 1
Named middle bone 2
Named bottom bone 3
Object mode
Select cylinder
SHIFT+Select armature
CTRL+P
Pose mode
Timeline
Success
How do I delete a bone in pose mode? I made a stickman and attached it to a mesh, animates and moves fine, looks good, but there are a couple bones that ended up there that I don’t need. Can I delete them?
And I want to have a second stickman to animate with the first, but I don’t want to have to recreate it all. How can I duplicate the bones/stickman and have the duplicated animate separately, if that is even possible?
To delete a bone, the armature must be in Edit mode.
To duplicate the character/rig, put the armature into Object mode, then select it and the mesh, press SH-D to duplicate. (Object menu / Duplicate)
If you’ve already animated the armature, the Action created by the first armature will also be linked to the second armature.
You can either unlink that action (by pressing the ‘X’ in the action window header, or make a unique copy of the action by LMB on the number (user count) beside the X in the action header window (“single user”)