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Moving Boxes - Armature, Rigging & Skinning
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make a simple mesh of cubes as body parts and spheres as joints

space bar
add Armature
the "master" bone appears

CtrlTab to Object Mode
select the master bone and move it to a convenient spot

Edit Mode
Add | Bone
Ctrl and LMB to make a new bone from the tip of the master bone to a new location
Ctrl LMB again to make another new one from the tip of the second bone to a new location
do this as needed.
now you have a chain of several bones.
select the last bone and Ctrl-I

skin the armature with the mesh
Ctrl-Tab to put armature into Object Mode
select the mesh
Shift-RMB and select the armature
Ctrl-P to merge the armature and the mesh
a menu appears - select "Object"

the armature will now pull the entire mesh with it if you move it as a piece

now to make the mesh change shape with the armature
select the mesh
click "Add Modifier"
choose "Armature" from the list
click little up arrow
disable "Vert.Groups"
in "Ob:" field type "Armature" or the name of the armature if you change it

Ctrl-Tab
change to Pose Mode
select bone at end of chain
panel Constraints
add constraint
increment ChainLen to the number of bones in the chain
move the tip bone and the entire chain moves now and changes the shape of the mesh.
your simple character has a skeleton and is ready for animation


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