Armature Modifier

The Armature modifier is used for building skeletal systems (rigs) for animative the poses of characters and anything else which needs to be posed.

By calculation an armature arrangement to an object, that object can be plain-featured accurately and then that geometry does not accept to be blithe by paw.

Options

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The Armature modifier.

Object

The name of the armature object used by this modifier.

Vertex Group

A vertex group of the object, which weights will be used to determine the influence of this modifier'southward results when mixing information technology with the results from other Armature ones.

Only meaningful when having at least 2 of these modifiers on the same object, with Multi Modifier activated.

Invert <->

Inverts the influence set past the vertex group defined in previous setting (i.due east. reverses the weight values of this group).

Preserve Volume

Employ quaternions for preserving book of object during deformation. Information technology can be better in many situations.

Without information technology, rotations at joints tend to scale downwards the neighboring geometry, up to about nada at 180 degrees from rest position. With it, the geometry is no longer scaled downward, just there is a "gap", a aperture when reaching 180 degrees from rest position.

Example of Preserve Volume effects. Note that the icosphere is deformed using the envelopes weights.
../../../_images/modeling_modifiers_deform_armature_preserve-volume-1.png

Initial state.

../../../_images/modeling_modifiers_deform_armature_preserve-volume-2.png

100° rotation, Preserve Volume disabled.

../../../_images/modeling_modifiers_deform_armature_preserve-volume-3.png

180° rotation, Preserve Volume disabled.

../../../_images/modeling_modifiers_deform_armature_preserve-volume-4.png

100° rotation, Preserve Volume enabled.

../../../_images/modeling_modifiers_deform_armature_preserve-volume-5.png

179.9° rotation, Preserve Book enabled.

../../../_images/modeling_modifiers_deform_armature_preserve-volume-6.png

180.1° rotation, Preserve Volume enabled.

Multi Modifier

Use the aforementioned data equally a previous modifier (commonly as well an Armature one) as input. This allows you lot to utilise several armatures to deform the same object, all based on the "non-deformed" information (i.e. this avoids having the 2d Armature modifier deform the effect of the showtime one…).

The results of the Armature modifiers are and then mixed together, using the weights of the Vertex Group as "mixing guides".

Tip

Armature modifiers can rapidly be added to objects past parenting them to an armature.

Bind to

Methods to bind the armature to the mesh.

Vertex Groups

Meshes and lattices only. When enabled, basic of a given name will deform vertices which belong to vertex groups of the same name. E.g. a bone named "forearm", will only touch on the vertices in the "forearm" vertex group.

The influence of 1 bone on a given vertex is controlled by the weight of this vertex in the relevant group. A much more precise method than Bone Envelopes, simply also generally longer to set.

Bone Envelopes

When enabled, bones will deform vertices or command points about them, defined by each os's envelope radius and altitude. This lets bone envelopes control the deformation (i.due east. bones deform vertices in their neighborhood).

Case of skinning methods.
../../../_images/modeling_modifiers_deform_armature_vertex-groups-skinning-1.png

The weights of the "arm" vertex group.

../../../_images/modeling_modifiers_deform_armature_vertex-groups-skinning-2.png

The weights of the "forearm" vertex group.

../../../_images/modeling_modifiers_deform_armature_vertex-groups-skinning-3.png

The upshot when posing the armature.

../../../_images/modeling_modifiers_deform_armature_vertex-groups-skinning-4.png

The same pose, simply using envelopes method rather that vertex groups.

Tip

When envelopes are disabled, Blender uses the gear up of existing vertex group names to determine which bones are actually necessary to evaluate the modifier. Removing empty vertex groups helps to reduce dependencies, and can be essential if the mesh is used during evaluation of other basic in the same armature, e.g. as the target of a Shrinkwrap constraint.