I made an armature for a model I made, and I named all the bones in the armature. Then I went to the object i was attaching to the bones, added an armature modifier, and started to add the vertices to groups. However, certain bones did not appear in the list of bone related groups I could select. And a whole column of “Bone.17”, etc., which I don’t even think exist since I named all the bones I made. Does anyone know how I can attach the vertices to the bones that don’t appear in the list?
Please upload the .blend if you can.
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OK, the part that confuses me about your description about how you went about adding the armature modifier to your object/mesh is this : AFAIK (or at least in the current 2.44 version) when you add the armature modifier without parenting (in Pose Mode select object/mesh -> Shift-select your armature -> Ctrl-P-> pick from the menu), you do not automatically get named bones to select from the vertex group menu field for the object/mesh . You have to manually create and name them (select new and then change the default “group” to a bone name) … So I don’t understand how you went about this exactly … Did you parent the armature and mesh AFTER you added the armature modifier ? Though that shouldn’t give you names of bones that don’t exist … Maybe you have a duplicate of your armature that you placed on a separate layer you forgot about ? … I’d open up the outliner and see what exactly is in your scene …
Unless any of the above helps please post a blend like Fligh suggested .
I can’t upload it because it says it’s an invalid file.
The mesh was parented to the armature before I added the modifier. Sorry about not mentioning that.
Yes it is a bit odd but you can’t up load blend to the forum … But here is an easy free uploader you can use : http://uploader.polorix.net/index.php
Well for starters for some reason you have applied the armature modifier twice to the same mesh - “Cube” - which I guess is the mesh for the body of the alien (it is always a good idea to give your objects names you will remember - just in case you get yourself stuck in situations like this) - It might be this duplication that is causing the unnamed bones to appear beside the named bones/vertex group possibilities … It seems you have parented the “Cube” mesh to the armature and for some reason added another armature modifier on top of the “virtual” one already there due to parenting . And then at some later point you added another armature modifier to the armor - “Sphere” - but this time without parenting it to the armature … which seems to have added even more “unnamed” (of the bone.001 variety) bones to the list …
I’m not sure what is causing this exactly but the fix I think is simple - just select the “Cube” and delete the armature modifiers and then unparent it from the armature . And then manually delete all the vertex groups (and you can do this in Object Mode now) - just keep hitting the “Delete” button under Vertex Groups in the Links and Materials panel in the Editing (F9) context until the mesh no longer has any groups . And then do the same for “Sphere” (except for the unparenting) … (You might be able to skip the manual deletion of the vertex groups if you save and re-open but I didn’t because I am just lazy :o)
Now just reparent “Cube” to the armature in the usual way and select whatever option you want - if you select “named groups” then only the named bones in your armature will show up … If do the same with “Sphere” then you will wind up the same list .
I think the extra vertex groups/unnamed bones appeared because the armature modifier was not the first on the modifier stack … If you simply parent the “virtual” armature modifier appears before the subsurf modifier where as in your file both meshes had the armature modifier after the subsurf …
Hope this helps .