- 7 weeks ago
🔹 Assigning an Armature in Blender
“Assigning an Armature” means linking a 3D mesh (character/object) to an armature (skeleton) so that the bones can deform and animate the mesh.
Basically → it’s the step where you tell Blender:
👉 “This skeleton controls this character.”
🔑 How It Works
Create a Mesh (your character or object).
Create an Armature (the skeleton with bones).
Assign the Armature to the Mesh → done by:
Selecting the mesh → Shift + select the armature.
Press Ctrl + P → Armature Deform.
Choose a method:
With Automatic Weights → Blender calculates which bones affect which vertices.
With Empty Groups → Creates vertex groups but doesn’t assign weights (you paint them manually).
With Envelope Weights → Uses bone envelopes (influence based on bone size).
Blender automatically adds an Armature Modifier to the mesh.
This is what actually makes the bones influence the mesh.
🔹 Example
You have a humanoid mesh.
You create an armature with spine, arm, and leg bones.
You select mesh → select armature → Ctrl+P → With Automatic Weights.
Now when you go into Pose Mode and move a bone, the mesh bends with it.
âś… In short:
Assigning an Armature = connecting a mesh to a skeleton so the bones can deform and animate it (usually done via parenting with automatic weights).
“Assigning an Armature” means linking a 3D mesh (character/object) to an armature (skeleton) so that the bones can deform and animate the mesh.
Basically → it’s the step where you tell Blender:
👉 “This skeleton controls this character.”
🔑 How It Works
Create a Mesh (your character or object).
Create an Armature (the skeleton with bones).
Assign the Armature to the Mesh → done by:
Selecting the mesh → Shift + select the armature.
Press Ctrl + P → Armature Deform.
Choose a method:
With Automatic Weights → Blender calculates which bones affect which vertices.
With Empty Groups → Creates vertex groups but doesn’t assign weights (you paint them manually).
With Envelope Weights → Uses bone envelopes (influence based on bone size).
Blender automatically adds an Armature Modifier to the mesh.
This is what actually makes the bones influence the mesh.
🔹 Example
You have a humanoid mesh.
You create an armature with spine, arm, and leg bones.
You select mesh → select armature → Ctrl+P → With Automatic Weights.
Now when you go into Pose Mode and move a bone, the mesh bends with it.
âś… In short:
Assigning an Armature = connecting a mesh to a skeleton so the bones can deform and animate it (usually done via parenting with automatic weights).
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LearningTranscript
00:00There is another add-on that I use a lot when I'm rigging.
00:04It's the simple name panel add-on.
00:07So you will find also the link in the PDF documentation.
00:12And as the bone layer manager, it's a free add-on.
00:16This will allow us to rename bones by batch.
00:21As for the bone layer management, you will be able to download a zipped file and then
00:26go to edit, preference, install.
00:28You should then find it in your add-on list and you can activate it by clicking the checkbox.
00:35It will also appear in the end panel.
00:39Before we use this add-on, we will duplicate all our deformation bones and move them on
00:45the second layer.
00:47The idea will be not to work on the deformation bones while we are rigging our character and
00:53keep somehow a copy of the deformation skeleton without a lot of constraints on top of it.
01:00This is a technique I've been using for game character rigging that allow you to use complex
01:07constraints without getting any bugs whether you're working in Unity or Unreal Engine and
01:13I will explain it a little later.
01:16Beyond this, it's a good way to separate whether bones are meant to deform the character, which
01:22is an important side of the rig, and in the other hand, if there are mechanism bones that
01:29allow us to animate the character.
01:32With all the deformation bones selected, I will press Shift-D, Enter to confirm.
01:38Then I will press the M key to move all those newly created bones and select the second layer.
01:44Then we will call this TGT as target.
01:47For the time being, we are only using three layers.
01:52One for the deformation, one for the target, and one for the root bone.
01:57So with the Hide Empty checked, I will have only three layers that are displayed.
02:03Now I want to rename all those bones with the prefix TGT instead of Death.
02:09In this simple renaming panel, in the Replace Name section, I will enter in the Search Def
02:16and in the Replace TGT.
02:19Then we have to define the type of item we need to rename.
02:23So in this case, it's bone.
02:25So in the very first stack, I will select bones.
02:28If I now click the Search and Replace button, it will replace all the DEF by a TGT.
02:36You may need to exit and re-enter Edit Mode to see the modification.
02:41I will then do exactly the same with the .001 and replace it by nothing so that I get rid
02:48of Blender Incrementation.
02:50All our target bones are now properly renamed.
02:55So now what I want to do is to make sure that the target bones will drive the deformation
03:01bones.
03:02So it's pretty simple.
03:03We'll just have to add a copy transform to each deformation bone from the corresponding
03:11target bone.
03:12The goal is then to be able to first work only on those target bone and keep the deformation
03:19bone untouched.
03:21And secondly, to separate all the deformation bone and unparent them.
03:26It means that in the end, all the deformation bone won't have any relationship one with each
03:33other.
03:34So when you will export them as an FBX, for example, for Unity or the Endrin engine, you
03:41will be able to export only those deformation bones and they will all have their own transform
03:48channel.
03:49Since they won't be parented one with each other, they will be moving with their own
03:55coordinates.
03:56And this is very handy when you need to parent an FX, for example, to the End.
04:03The parenting system can vary depending on the engine and you can often have some scaling
04:10problem with the legacy of the child parent relationship.
04:14Here, we are sure that we won't have this problem.
04:18It might sound a bit complicated if you're a pure beginner, but whenever you want to export
04:24your animation to another software, you should build your rig this way.
04:30Hopefully, this will sound way more obvious once you've completed this course.
04:35So while I was explaining to you all those issues, I was assigning the copy transform to
04:41each bone.
04:42So what you need to do is first select the bone that will constrain the other.
04:47So first select the target bone, then select the death bone and press Ctrl Shift C and select
04:56copy transform.
04:58By default, the copy transform will be set from wall space to wall space.
05:03So we don't need to do anything else.
05:06If I add the layer with the target bones, we can now see the deformation bones and they
05:12are green because they have a constraint.
05:14A bone with a constraint will appear in green.
05:17Here, we are seeing the same video sequence as when I was talking about the use of this
05:24rig for video games.
05:26So I'm just assigning a deformation constraint to each deformation bone and I've done it
05:33on the whole rig, but for the roots.
05:37So now I will make sure that those target bones won't deform the mesh.
05:41So I will select them all, press Shift W, deform and disable the deform option.
05:47This way, I'm sure that Blender won't create unnecessary vertex group when I will parent the bone, when
05:55I will parent the mesh to the rig.
05:58But right now, we are kind of missing something.
06:01It's half of the rig.
06:03To symmetrize the rig, it's very simple.
06:06I will select everything in edit mode.
06:09So make sure that all the layers are enabled.
06:12I will right click on it and click symmetrize.
06:16Since we have correctly named our bone with the dot L suffix, it will automatically generate
06:23the same rig on the right side with the dot R suffix.
06:28So now I can assign this armature to the model.
06:32So I will press Ctrl Tab.
06:34To get back into object mode, first select the mesh, then the armature, press Ctrl P and
06:41select with empty groups.
06:43Blender will automatically create weight groups as if we were using with automatic weight.
06:51But this time, all those groups will be empty.
06:55So why doing so?
06:57This is because our mesh is mainly made of spare parts.
07:02So it will be way easier for me to assign each of those parts manually than to correct
07:10an automatic weight that could be sometime approximated.
07:14So now with the mesh selected and in edit mode, I can press L hovering over those parts
07:21and assign them with a full influence to the spine vertex group.
07:27And I will then repeat the process for the head, the neck, the shoulder, etc.
07:33For the shoulder, I will just roughly assign a few vertices around the shoulder bone and
07:41then we'll refine it with some vertex painting.
07:44this way, here it willell you right?
08:03Double, double, double.
08:05And that works biochanical.
08:08Be win, double.
08:40Since we've added a subdivision modifier to our character, it might not be super responsive
08:57when we try to deform it using the armature or try to animate.
09:02It can be tedious to try to enable and disable the subdivision modifier each time we want
09:08to test something, especially when you have a character with multiple objects and multiple
09:14subdivision modifier.
09:15We can modify the resolution of the whole scene at once by going into the rendering option,
09:23enabling Simplify.
09:25We can then set the maximum resolution of the subdivision modifier for all our objects
09:31in the blender file, whether it's in the viewport or in the render.
09:36So now if I select my armature and go back into pause mode, I can rotate the bones and
09:42see how my character reacts.
09:44I will get back into object mode and I will select my character object.
09:50You can see that the subdivision modifier is in red because we have enabled the Simplify,
09:55so it's no longer used.
09:58If we activate and deactivate the armature modifier, we'll see our character not deform anymore.
10:03But the important thing I wanted to point out is that with the armature modifier that is
10:10placed after the mirror modifier, the character behaves the right way, meaning that the right
10:18and left sides are separated.
10:21While if I move the armature before the mirror modifier, it won't work properly.
10:26And this is thanks to our naming convention adding the dot L and dot R suffix.
10:33So whenever you achieve such an important step, you should always try to deform your character
10:39and see if everything behaves the right way.
10:42I have previously made a mistake that you won't be able to spot if you don't do it so.
10:49And when we move the spine here, we can see the problem.
10:52The shoulder bone are not parented, so we just need to get back into edit mode, select
10:59both shoulder bones, select then the chest bone and parent them together.
11:05Note that I'm working on the target bone, so I'm using the shoulder target to the chest
11:11target.
11:12It's also the time to check the weight so we can see that the spine deformation is a bit
11:17weird and the shoulder deformation is clipping.
11:21This is because the vertices of the chest are sharing influences with the chest bone and
11:27the shoulder bone.
11:29So we need to revise the weight using the weight paint tool.
11:33To double check what I'm seeing, I can have a loop to the vertex group.
11:37To find rapidly a vertex group, you can click this arrow icon.
11:41It will open the search drop down menu and you just have to tap shoulder for example.
11:48I will then go back into object mode, select the armature, then select the mesh object and
11:55press control tab and select weight paint mode.
11:58It will show the weight of the previously selected vertex group, so in this case, the shoulder
12:03L.
12:04If I now control left click the shoulder L bone to select it, you will see my character turning
12:10to pink.
12:11In blender and in many other 3D software, pink means missing information or error.
12:19Since the target bone is not a deformation bone, when I select it, blender can't find
12:26any corresponding vertex group.
12:28So, since we are in vertex paint mode, it won't find any information.
12:34If I want to see the right vertex group, I will need to activate the deformation layer
12:40and select a deformation bone.
12:43I can now see that my shoulder weight seems to be okay, but the chest weight is influencing
12:49the whole chest part, while it should be set to 0 around the shoulder area.
12:56To make things more readable, I will select back my character object and in the mesh display,
13:03I will activate wireframe.
13:05Since the weight is assigned to vertices, it's better to walk this way so that we can see
13:11the vertices.
13:12Then, I will select the subtract brush and in the falloff option, I will select a flat
13:19curve.
13:20I don't like to have a falloff on the curve whenever I'm working on weight paint because
13:25it will assign different weight depending on the area of the brush and I don't want this.
13:30I want something regular and precise.
13:33So having a flat curve will get rid of this variation.
13:38Since I'm removing chest influenced from this area while painting the weight using the subtract
13:44brush, we can see the vertices moving.
13:48This is because they are now more influenced by the depth shoulder that I raised just before
13:55than by the chest.
13:57Note that I have isolated the chest of my character in the viewport using this small icon.
14:04This will allow you to select faces of the mesh that you want to edit.
14:09The unselected faces won't be editable so you won't be able to change the weight.
14:15But you can also hide the ones that are selected or unselected.
14:20So I generally select the chest pressing L while I'm hovering over it.
14:26And then press shift H to hide everything but it.
14:30Note that when it's activated, you can't use anymore the bone selection by pressing control
14:37left click.
14:38So you will have to deactivate it and reactivate it at will.
14:43I will smooth out the shoulder deformation a bit by using a lower weight strength.
14:50So I'm using the mix brush and I will set the weight I want.
14:55I generally work with a strength of one so that whenever I'm painting, it will set the
15:04weight I've selected in one click.
15:07If you work with a weight of one and a very low strength, it's hard to have a good control
15:12over what you are painting.
15:14While if you set your target weight and then set the strength to one, you are sure to set
15:20a 0.3 value here, for example.
15:24So in this case, I will switch to a 0.6 value to get a nice fall off.
15:30This is the way I like to work to have a nice control over my weight paint.
15:34I see a lot of people that have a lot of fall off on their weight paint because they have used
15:40the automatic weight painting and then they don't properly clean up their weight.
15:46Generally, a bone influence is more or less around the bone.
15:51So if your arm is also influencing the chest or the forearm or stuff like this, this is not
15:57correct.
15:58Even if you have a visually decent result, you should correct it.
16:03It will be way more obvious for further enhancements.
16:07Having the spine influence, I want the hips to also deform this area so that it will bend
16:13instead of simply rotating.
16:15I will do it in edit mode since I have a really well defined edge loop, it will be easier.
16:22So I will first reduce the spine influence on this middle edge loop by saying the depth
16:28spine group and set the weight to 0.5 and click assign.
16:33Then I will remove its influence from all the lower loops.
16:37So I will hide the loop I've just modified and then press L and select the lower loop and
16:43remove them from the group.
16:46I will then go in the overlay menu and enable the vertex weight display.
16:52I will select the hips, assign a 0.5 strength to the center loop and then a full strength
17:01to the lower loop so that I get a nice fall off.
17:09Once I've checked the deformation, I will go back into edit mode, select both legs and parent
17:15them to the...
17:16coroner Europologist.
17:23So there is no point.
17:25But this one is an expression.
17:27Let's repeat.
17:27Let's begin.
17:28So before we go into the top one, I will swap.
17:30Do I have a Felipe ěš°w passion?
17:32Let's wake two body movements so that I can use that so allow me to follow.
17:34Ready?
17:36It is a communist anomaly.
17:38Then I'm in this servicios.
17:39I will do nicely.
17:40Okay, so now I have the roof now.
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