Parent prop to body part, without having it buried in the node tree

scienceofspock

Howdy y'all,

I have a camera rig that I have built for parenting to a character's head, and for the most part, it works well, but is there a way that I can parent it to the figure's head but LEAVE it at the root level, so I don't have to dig through the ENTIRE figure Hip->Abdomen Lower->Abdomen Upper->blah->blah heirarchy to get to it when I need to make changes?

Alternatively, is there a way to give a NULL *something* in the scene that I can click to select the NULL itself instead of one of its children?

crosswind

Parenting means you have to place the camera under Head node, but it should be easy for you to select the camera in Viewport. If it's not easy to do so, you may assign a shortcut to Expand All, and type the key word of the object, e.g. 'MyCam' in the Filter box, then you get it with 2 steps.

It's easy to select a Null node in Viewport, you just need to set its childrens Unselectable.

scienceofspock

crosswind said:

Parenting means you have to place the camera under Head node, but it should be easy for you to select the camera in Viewport. If it's not easy to do so, you may assign a shortcut to Expand All, and type the key word of the object, e.g. 'MyCam' in the Filter box, then you get it with 2 steps.

It's easy to select a Null node in Viewport, you just need to set its childrens Unselectable.

I understand how parenting works, and I know I can select the camera in the viewport. The problem is that I have SEVERAL cameras attached to a null, with a separate null acting as a dolly for the focal lengths of said cameras and the whole rig is attached to the head of a figure so it moves when I move the figure. I have the cameras disabled and hidden because I almost never want to select them directly, and they clutter up the scene visually. The problem is that every single camera target has those SAME little red/green/blue crosses, even when they are hidden and disabled, so finding AND CLICKING ON the actual null in all of that is tedious especially in a busy scene. Drilling down the figure in the Scene tab is no less tedious, in part because even on a very powerful system, having more than a few figures in the scene makes the Scene tab very laggy and prone to mis-clicks.

I have seen some clothing items and props, such as glasses, that are parented to a specific body part of a figure and move with it, but simply appear at the root level of the figure, not buried down under the Head node. How can I do that with my null? Is there maybe a way I can parent it to the main figure, but tell it to follow the transforms of the head?

This brings up another question. I have my UI set to select the figure on first click, then to select a body part if I click on it directly after that. That's an option in settings. Why don't groups or parent/child node relationships behave that way also? That would make this problem a non-issue.

crosswind

OK, understood but I'm afraid there may be no way to really do so. See if other guys have any good way. The clothing / accessories you mentioned on the 2nd level of the figure... they're conformed wearables with rigging rather than Smart props that have to be Parented to some nodes.

For the last question, yeah, that's right, but just because the figure is with hierarchical nodes and they have geometry, whille a Null node and Group node don't, so that way of selection does not work on them. 

scienceofspock

crosswind said:

For the last question, yeah, that's right, but just because the figure is with hierarchical nodes and they have geometry, whille a Null node and Group node don't, so that way of selection does not work on them.

That seems like it could be solved by having something tangible in the scene with which to grab them as I mentioned in one of my other messages.