Doc talk:2.4/Tutorials/Animation/Armatures/BSoD/Preface: Rigging in Blender

"There are a good many number of reasons why you should use an armature modifier instead of a parenting relationship, but I won't go into all of that here."

I wish you would, as the (supposed) advantages of modifiers (the new way) compared to "parenting" (the old way) are NOT DOCUMENTED ANYWHERE !

On forums like BlenderArtists, every time someone asks that question, someone (virtually) mumbles that the "new way" is just better, has more advantages etc, etc.

And so the "knowledge" gets passed on to the next user that the "new way" is just better (but don't worry why)

Don't use a modifier AND have the mesh as a child of the armature. Doing so is like having two armature modifiers, and it makes the mesh go all screwy when the armature is not in rest position.

Hmm, this is another nugget that needs further explanation. I use the "parent the mesh" method all the time (which Blender then turns into a "pseudo" modifier, with the option to "Make Real". I didn't notice that "Make real" option until it was pointed out to me on the B.A. forum, so I activated it because "it makes things work better" (See question #1 above !!!!)

Mike --Mstram 05:08, 20 July 2006 (CEST)

"Using these three constraints simulates a parent/child relationship, but also locks our mesh in place so we can't move it. As shown on the armature intro page, moving a mesh relative to the armature is a bad thing. Using these three constraints prevents that completely, and from a rig design point of view, this is a wonderful thing! This eliminates yet one more way that someone could break the character."

Since I haven't received an explanation of why the parent-to-armature is a "bad" thing, then this constraint sytem seems needlessly complex to me.

Mike --Mstram 22:09, 21 November 2006 (CET)