Hello,
I wanted to shed some light upon a subject that i find a bit shaky or counter-intuitive to say the least.
It concerns vertex groups.
Now, every one knows that vertex groups are managed from the data panel of the properties panel. So one may think they are mesh-data dependant, just like its cousins UVMaps / Shape keys / Vertex colours maps. But it isn;t so simple.
Here is a test file I’ve made.
File
On top is a start object with data that contains a UVMap, some vertex groups, shape keys and a Col map.
Now let’s start experimenting.
I’ve made a Shift-duplicate of it: it has inherited all the goodies from its source.
If you make some change to a vertex group of the source, it isn’t reflected in the copy. Logical
I’ve also made a Alt-duplicate of it. Now changes in the vertex group of the source are reflected. Here again that’s fully logical: after all it is a linked copy.
Things start to get a bit more shaky when you don’t duplicate but use “link” after ward.
The top object on the right started its life as a plane. Than I went to the data panel and swapped its datablock to be that of the source mesh, and it instantly became a sphere just like the source one, with shape keys (linked) UVs (linked) and Col maps (linked) BUT NO VERTEX GROUPS.
Same if you link with Ctrl-L (bottom right)
1st question :Why this behaviour ? Why should we loose vertex groups informations when linking to a mesh datablock ?
After all vertex groups are to be found in the Data panel, so it would be intuitive to get them linked as well.
So one gets the impression that vertex groups are NOT included in the datablock when linked afterward, whereas they were when we used Ald-D
Now some more magic:
Select one of the two objects at the right, go to mesh/data panel and add 2 vertex groups. You’ll see them appear, named “Group” and “Group.001”.
Now enter it (edit mode), and you’ll see with amazement that these 2 mimic the “top” and “waiste” groups from the start mesh they were linked from !!!
2nd question :Why is that so then ? We were under the impression that vertex groups were not conveyed with the datablock… and still creating 2 vertex groups from scratch make the 2 groups “top” and “waiste” rise from the dead !
And the wiki mentions that new groups are created empty…
Even better: make a change to one of them, say “Group.001”, by assigning more vertices to it, and you’ll see the changes in the start mesh under the vertex group “Waiste” !
3rd question :How is that possible then, when these vertex groups don’t even share the same name ???
The wiki mentions that as well at the very bottom of the page. But what is that good for ? I don’t get it…
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Modeling/Meshes/Vertex_Groups/Vertex_Groups
I’d be interested to know what the rationale is for these unintuitive behaviour…