Object management

Support Modeling
#1

Hello all,

I’ve been playing around with blender for a while now (i’m comfortable with things like subserf, extruding, different methods of selection, and transform, scale, rotate, etc…). But one thing I haven’t been able to figure out is how to manage multiple objects. Suppose I want a detailed model of a person standing. I thought it’d be necessary to keep the person’s foot as a separate entity from his head. I’ve played with pixel groups but those can’t be named. I’d like to specify that “this” object is the foot and “that” object is the left hand and “that other object” is his head. And I’d like to be able to select these objects, group them, separate them, and give them children objects (aka the foot object has 5 toe objects; the toes are part of the foot).

I imagine that this type of functionality is in blender somewhere but after searching through numerous forums, reading/watching/listening to a few tutorials and even buying a book I still haven’t found any answer.

I appreciate the help.

#2

There are several ways to organize objects in Blender:

  1. Groups. Groups can be named either in the F7 button page or in the Outliner (view groups then Ctl-Click on the name to change). You can select objects in the same group with Shift-G. Then move, rotate, scale etc.

  2. Parenting. One technique is to add an Empty object and parent all of the sub-objects to the Empty. By selecting the Empty, you can move, rotate, scale the objects as a group. Of course, the Empty can be renamed as well. In the Outliner, you can make the children objects of the Empty unselectable if you wish.

  3. Joining. In some cases, you might join the separate objects into one. You can maintain the sub-object’s identity by putting its vertices in a Vertex Group (F9). The sub-object can be selected by vertex group and separated when you need to.