Hello once again.

 I've come to a road block with a importatn project. I started it in 2.49b and then finished it up in 2.5alpha2. No big deal. The project is a pretty simple robot that transforms from a shimple shape. Every part of his body is a seprate mesh of course. I don't want to use Bone Heat, because I don't want his parts to bend.

 In 2.49 I would simply parent the defferent meshes to the armeture > go into each mesh's Edit mode, select all Verts, and then type the relitive bone in the "Group" section and press apply. Not the best way to do it I know, but it's simple, fast and I knew how to do it. lol.

 Unforunately I can't seem to do that in 2.50. I don't want to use weights at all nor Bone heat. Can someone please provide a explaination on how to do this in 2.5? I tried opening the file back in 2.49 but it crashes every time now. Please help!
 

Why not just parent objects? If you don't use any kind of change to mesh when moving or rotating parts, armature is not needed. Just parent the parts to each other. Then move topmost one in hierarchy, when you want whole robot to move. If you want, for example, rotate a leg for kick, rotate the leg and the foot moves with it...

Unless I didn't quite catch your meaning.

I just tried, what I said, in Blender 2.54 (SVN version, self compiled) and it work as I suppose it should...

That is an option.

 But the issue with that is there are no IK restraints, etc
IKs allow one to move one bone and the rest follow realistically.
Also, Armatures allow the user to create a menu system for moving certain parts just in case you can reach/access it easily.

 But possibly the biggest issue is the bending the joints them-selves. Simply parenting objects together requires the user to angle their Point Of View perfectly to make the mesh bend correctly. Where as an Armature contains it's own set of retraint controls that allows you to always bend the joint in a certain direction (in conjunction of the other related meshs/bones) without having to move the Point Of View at all.

For example, try rotating a robot's finger joints after rotating the hand/palm between 45-90 degrees in all directions. Snapping to a Front, Side, or Top view doesn't help because the hand, and therefore the finger, is not perfectly aliagned with that view. So now you have to go through a long process just to get the right Point Of View to move it. And once you move the hand again, then you've gotta start the tedious process over again for the same mesh and as well as all of the other meshes.

So, yeah, I still need the armature

I can see some of your points (I think), but I have done something similar with just parenting... I resorted to numerical input sometimes. It's not very sophisticated, but on mechanical models it's sometimes working well. I wouldn't want to model organic movement numerically, that's way too complicated.

There were some discussions that latest versions have some bugs in automatic mode (i.e. old "heat" system) in 2.54, so some strange issues may occur... Blenderartists has some information.

I hope they'll get animation working soon, it'd be a pity to go back 2.49 for bugs. Ah well, beta is beta, but at least devs are quite active.

One more thought, you ARE aware of Normal rotation, so local rotation base is used? Just a click more, solves some drudgery... (Just a thought, I was re-reading your posting...)

Quote - One more thought, you ARE aware of Normal rotation, so local rotation base is used? Just a click more, solves some drudgery... (Just a thought, I was re-reading your posting...)

 Not sure what you're refuring to. Sorry.
I've only ever animated complex models with Armatures. For simple objects that don't need armatures (ie: a box moving to different points and rotating), I would just keyframe, move and keyframe the new frame. In short, you lost me at "Normal rotation."  I know that the object will rotate around it's central point, but that's the only movement I've ever tried outside of using an armature.

I've still got a TON to learn.
Thanks for your help

Yes, exactly, object rotates around it's center, but you can (in 3D view basic UI, same in 2.4x and 2.5x) click different rotation systems to be used. For example, moving or rotating camera is much easier, if you use Normal. Global is probably the default.

When using Normal, the rotation is not base (global) X/Y/Z but it's based on objects own location and rotation.

Sorry, if I'm confusing, this is much, much, easier to show than to describe...

I am trying to find tutorials on rigging a robot too. Not having bones doesn't seem to be a good option because without IK the feet won't stay put when you move the rest of the model like walking. I am new to blender. The main problem I am having is how to attach each bone to just a single mesh of the robot like the thigh or what ever. Rigging an organic model seems fairly simple but that has deformation a robot doesn't.

Ditto,

 I've done as Doomsday suggested and it works, but it causes other issues that I'll not get into right now. Until I learn the 2.5 way of rigging, it will do however.

 Thinking about it, I need to re-learn how to rig an armature in 2.5 WITHOUT using Bone Heat, and WITHOUT using Weight Paint. I understand it's not suggested, but I work best when I can select the verts and asseign them to a certain bone. I have a robotic spider to rig, and weight paint will not get into all of the corners no matter how hard I try. :(

Btw, I had to rig something with Armature modifier and vertex groups in 2.55 and I must say that it has really working nicely now.

You just define vertex groups with the same names as your bones and voila, Armature modifier begins to work.

It might be one way to solve mechanical movement, I used Weight value 1.0 with all vertexes which is, well, hard surface stuff.

Nice thing, which I have not tested, but I assume that should work, is that you can use one Armature skeleton with several models/meshes, so if you develop poses for one mesh, they might work with others... Of course you probably need to "fit" the Armature with each model.

edit: typos