Help: Cannot Get Armature Modifier to Work

Blender Courses Talk
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#1

So, I have been having a difficult time with the armature modifier even in a simplified case. What I want to do is rotate a small cube on top of a bigger cube (show below) but using the armature modifier instead of the parenting bone heirarchy:

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Here are the steps I have taken (“UpCube” and “DownCube” mesh objects have now been merged in a single mesh object called “Cube”):
Step 1: Select the faces of what used to be “UpCube” in edit mode.

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Step 2: Create new vertex group (called “UpCube”) and lock it.

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Step 3 and 4: Switch back into object mode and rename the bone, under armature, “UpCube.” Then select “Cube” mesh object and select the Armature modifier. Select the object “Armature” and apply.

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Step 5: Select the bone “UpCube” and switch into Pose mode.

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Step 6: Rotate the bone “UpCube” and note that the corresponding mesh group fails to follow.

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I am missing something incredibly obvious but I need some help in seeing where I have gone wrong…

#2

Hi,

To me it looks like you haven’t parented the mesh and armature. It will not work otherwise. So I assume this will fix the issue. You can do this by selecting the mesh and then shift selecting the armature and by pressing control + P. Then select with automatic weights.

If you add a armature modifier to your object you can do the parenting with control + P without any other settings. After this I think you need to weight paint the vertexes to match your armature (I am not sure about this).

So what I always do is I use control + P with automatic weights and it works for me. Hope this helps!

Cheers, Jax

1 Like
#3

Hi Jax,

Thanks! Your solution did the trick. It seems that what I was doing wrong was control + P and then selecting “Bone” instead of “With Automatic Weights.” I don’t doubt that I will send out an SOS signal again… But until then, best wishes!

James

#4

Hi Shadow!

Good that I could be of help. Just having watched the S05 videos about the lamp rigging I think the big difference here is that you are having single mesh as opposed to the course where the lamp is constructed from several objects. The course (instructor) do not want to have mesh deform since the objects are own entities and are supposed to be moving on their own.

Cheers, Jax

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