To clarify what version I am working with at this time I will let you know from the start that it is Blender 2.63a. With that point made, I will now relate what I am trying to learn.

In a word, "Rigging". The educational document I am using The Blender Basics Tutorial is for 2.5, but it is only covering the basics. It has been quite helpful to me as far as the information it covers; however, though it indicates that origins (pivot points) can be moved in an object, it does not tell how to create a new origin for an object that has one already. Understand that the type of rigging I am trying to do is just pivot point rigging and not soft body rigging. The Blender Basics Tutorial shows that multiple objects can be jointed at specified pivot points by means of the child to parent relationship. Once the first and second objects are linked in this fashion, you choose the second object as the child of the third object, which becomes the parent of the second object, but the second oject is already parented to the first and does not have a pivot point at the end where I wish to Parent the third one to it. 

I want to create models that have opening doors, articulated sections and the like, which in Blender does not involve the creation of a skeletal system or weight mapping to smooth the deforming vertices during a posing operation. If I could do the work by that method rather than by pivot point rigging, the separate parts would have pivot points at each end of each bone. I could just join the different parts of my model to pivot around those ends. Weight mapping for hard body models is not a neccessity, so all I would need is the bones. That would be good except that from what I have seen so far, rigging with a skeleton system works on single object models, which is why weight mapping is a neccessity. It is called soft body rigging.

It would be highly appreciated if the good people here could help clarify the pivot point rigging method. Some questions I would like to know the answers to are as follows:

In the above example I pointed out that there is no pivot point at the other end of a parented object that already has a child. So this is my first question: When choosing it as the child for the next object to be parented to, does a new pivot point get created for that operation? If this is not the case, then how do I create the needed pivot point without deleting the original one for that object? Can a single object have more than one pivot point?

I tried joining two objects into one mesh with their pivot points at different ends, but once joined they only had one pivot point. This was not what I wanted.

I welcome any advice, suggestions or links to tutorials dealing with this subject. I have already found a few tutorials dealing with rigging but nearly all of them are for soft body rigging. As I am not yet to the point of creating soft body models this is of no help to me yet. Perhaps someday I will be able to do that type of work, but for now I will stick with hard body models.

Stay awesome!

Agent 0013.

Someone said "If life serves you lemons, make lemonaid." I did that, but it still tasted sour! I guess I didn't add enough sugar!

ts

As an example if you want to rig a wardrobe consisting of a cabinet and two doors using the method you are describing above rather than an armature system then each of the doors would by children of the cabinet.  To parent the doors to the cabinet select all of the doors first and then select the cabinet last.  Press Ctrl+P and set parent to object.  Now when you move the cabinet the doors will follow as they are now children of the cabinet (parent).

To set pivot points with precision you need to get an understanding of how the Origin, Pivot and Snap tools work together.  Answering your question above what you want to do is move an objects Origin, because the object Pivots around its Origin.

Origin Point Screen Shot

Using the wardrobe as an example follow these steps:

1. Parent the doors to the cabinet as described above.
2. Choose the first door and go into edit mode (edge).
3. Select the edge of the door that you want it to pivot around
4. Use the Snap Tool (Ctrl+S) and choose "Cursor to Selected".  This snaps the 3D cursor to the center of the selected edge.
5. Exit Edit mode and in object mode click on the Origin tool and select
   "Origin to 3D Cursor".
6. Set the objects Pivot point to Active Element.

Repeat the above steps with the other door.  Now when you select a door you can rotate it around the new origin point that is situated at the center point of the edge you selected in Edit mode.  When you select the cabinet and move it the doors will follow because of the parenting.

Experiment with some of the other combinations of the Snap, Origin and Pivot tools to get an understanding of how useful these tools can be for placing an objects origin exactly where you want it to go.  For example instead of selecting the edge you could select either an individual face or vertice as the "Cursor to Selected" snap point.  You could also select an edge/vert/face on a secondary object and move the 3D cursor to that point with the snap tool and then select  the original object and move its origin to the 3D cursor so your original object now pivots around the secondary object. 

Quote - As an example if you want to rig a wardrobe consisting of a cabinet and two doors using the method you are describing above rather than an armature system then each of the doors would by children of the cabinet.  To parent the doors to the cabinet select all of the doors first and then select the cabinet last.  Press Ctrl+P and set parent to object.  Now when you move the cabinet the doors will follow as they are now children of the cabinet (parent).

To set pivot points with precision you need to get an understanding of how the Origin, Pivot and Snap tools work together.  Answering your question above what you want to do is move an objects Origin, because the object Pivots around its Origin.

Origin Point Screen Shot

Using the wardrobe as an example follow these steps:

1. Parent the doors to the cabinet as described above.
2. Choose the first door and go into edit mode (edge).
3. Select the edge of the door that you want it to pivot around
4. Use the Snap Tool (Ctrl+S) and choose "Cursor to Selected".  This snaps the 3D cursor to the center of the selected edge.
5. Exit Edit mode and in object mode click on the Origin tool and select
   "Origin to 3D Cursor".
6. Set the objects Pivot point to Active Element.

Repeat the above steps with the other door.  Now when you select a door you can rotate it around the new origin point that is situated at the center point of the edge you selected in Edit mode.  When you select the cabinet and move it the doors will follow because of the parenting.

Experiment with some of the other combinations of the Snap, Origin and Pivot tools to get an understanding of how useful these tools can be for placing an objects origin exactly where you want it to go.  For example instead of selecting the edge you could select either an individual face or vertice as the "Cursor to Selected" snap point.  You could also select an edge/vert/face on a secondary object and move the 3D cursor to that point with the snap tool and then select  the original object and move its origin to the 3D cursor so your original object now pivots around the secondary object. 

Thank you for your quick response. The information you have provided is a help. I have already created a simple pivot point rig using two objects and the joint works perfectly. Still though, I need a little more information.

Let's say there is a model I am working on that has multiple moving parts. Some of the parts are the children of a central object, which I will call the great grandparent object. Obviously this will be the last object selected in the final child to parent assignment operation. Of course the child of that object is a parent to the next object, and likewise the third object is a parent to another object. This fourth object is the first to be selected while holding shift, after which you would select the third object and then press CTRL-P and set Parent to Object. Now at the other end of object 2 you want it to become the child of object 3 by performing the same operation as before but now with the first parent object as child for the third object. You would then perform the same operation to make the second parent object a child to the final object, (kind of like the linkage of a car's rear end, through the drive shaft, to the transmission, and then the motor). This is the type of rigging I am wanting to learn. I call it chainlink rigging, because the consecutive parts are linked in a chain of objects.

A good example of this type of rigging would be a model of a humanoid robot, which would look mechanical, but have movements that resemble that of humans. It would have fully articulated arms, legs, hands, feet, and head. Of course the torso would be the main part to which all others are linked in the fashion I described; (it would be the greatest grandparent of all the other objects).

Any ideas on how to do this?

Although you may want to avoid using bones, what you are describing is best accomplished using bones and creating an armature.  You don't need to have the object as one single mesh and there is no need to weight paint because in the end all you are doing is parenting the body parts to the armature bones.  The advantage of doing it this way is that the joint hierarchy is clear and the joint pivot points are easier to manage.

This video should help you out as a starting point.  Just follow the principles in the video to expand the number of bones and joints you need.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9iL1hmJXrI

PS.  Just a friendly hint, there is no need to quote the previous post each time you reply as it just makes for alot of scrolling.  Just quote specific bits if it is necessary to quote at all.

The truth is that I would rather use the armature method, because as you have said, the joint hierarchy is clear. What was not clear was whether or not it could work for multiple meshes, but you have confirmed my own thoughts, thank you. I just did not understand why there are 2 types of rigging in Blender when the armature method works well enough for any type of model in many other 3D art applications. It seemed that the system was created for hard body rigging to address issues with the other system.

As I understand it the armature system has the added advantage of weight mapping, which in soft body rigging allows for the deformation of the affected vertices in a natural looking manner.

I'll check into the video you have suggested. It may be one I have already downloaded, and have available on my hard drive. Thanks for the link.

Thanks for the friendly hint. I tend to forget certain things when there are other things prominent on my mind.

I checked the video out and it will most definitely be a big help. I have downloaded it so that I can have it up and running while practicing the method.

A quick question now: Is there a way to export the rigging with the model for use in other applications such as DAZ Studio 4.5 Pro? If not, I shall have to learn rigging in the other applications as well. From what I've seen, that should not be much of a problem once I know and understand the method in Blender, as nearly all of the applications rigging systems operate in a similar fashion.

Anyway, thank you for all your help. you steered me in the right directions right from the start. I'll let you know how I do with this.

Check out this thread in the Blender forum here at Renderosity:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2856146

Thanks for the link to the other thread. I put in a few questions there and will be checking in on it to see what is being posted. It's a very interesting thread.