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reference
materialDynamic Parenting
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Spring 2006ss
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by Rebekah Mason
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Sometimes when we’re animating, its necessary to temporarily attach (parent) one object to another. For example, the laboratory doctor wants to pick up a mouse and set it back down on the table. When you just “parent” an object, or “parent in place”, the mouse will simply keep following the parent object; flying through the air in the same path as the doctor’s hand. To prevent this strange phenomenon, we use a technique called “dynamic parenting”.
You can parent any object to any other object you want, but for realism, I’ve chosen my laboratory doctor and little cute mouse.
Generally, you will know a head of time that you are going to need to parent something in a scene. Once you have your scene set up with at least two items, even if you don’t need the items parented yet, it’s best to start the process at your first frame, so Lightwave doesn’t get confused.
From here on out, I will refer to the lab doctor as Parent and the mouse as Child, so you can follow along with a Parent and Child object yourself.
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DYNAMIC PARENTING EXPLAINED FOR THE MASSES
Step 1 : Select the Child object in the Lighwave layout.
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Step 2 : Open the Motion Options Panel (shortcut: m). Inside the Motion Options Panel, select the Add Modifier drop down menu.
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Step 3 : From the drop down menu, find and select “Parenter”. You’ll notice a Motion Modifier now available for selection.
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Step 4 : Making sure that the it is checked (that is the default), and then double click on the Dynamic (Keyable) Parent modifier to open up a dialogue box.
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In this box, you’ll notice a few options- Parent, Unparent, Delete & Edit. They should be relatively self-explanatory, but we’ll go through them all.
Step 5 : Now you need to select the object that is to be the Parent Object and, let’s hit the Parent button. |
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Step 6 : These are the defaulted selections that will automatically come up. If you have forgotten to select the Parent Object and you try to select the parent, this charming box will pop up:
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So, continuing with step 6, find your Parent object in the top drop down menu and select it. You will also most likely want to keep the initial scale. This screen shows what happened to my Child object when I did NOT decide to keep initial scale. The Child changes size to match the scale of its parent object. If your objects are all of approximate scale, it won’t matter, but I strongly suggest you Keep Initial Scale. Check that box. |
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Step 7 : Now we see that we’ve started the list of the first of many possible parents. 00000 is the key frame that the dynamic parent has made, and we see the name of the object that the Child object is parented to.
Step 8 : Remember, I said that Lightwave gets buggy sometimes if you don’t parent the Child Object right at the beginning. We don’t want the Child Object to float through the air right away, so, staying on frame 0, click Unparent.
NOTE : If you don’t parent and unparent starting at 0, the Child Object might not parent in place, or may rotate, or something crazy. Parenting and unparenting at 0 is NOT necessary, it just always seems to prevent problems later. |
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Step 9 : Continue with your animation. Whenever you want the Parent Object to pick up or interact with the Child Object, just open your motion options (m), open up the Dynamic Parenting dialogue box, and parent and unparent as needed. If you make a mistake, select from the list of “Parents” in the dialogue box, and hit delete.
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You can see on my animation that the Parent Object begins to pick up the Child at frame 6, carries it through the air, and sets it back down at frame 23. If you did everything correctly, you’ll see the frame is “BAKED”. (none) means indicates that the Child Object is parented to no object. L_Thumb is the name of the object that I used as my Parent. |
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If everything goes according to plan, your parent will be able to move through space without affecting the Child Object until
you are ready for it to be interacted with, and then you will be able to release it again at will. |
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Things to Remember :
1. You don’t HAVE to, but setting up dynamic parenting at Frame 0 makes Lightwave much happier later, and you may
save yourself time troubleshooting.
2. Don’t parent an object to itself in the motion options.
3. If you have multiple Children, make sure to keep the dialogue boxes for each child separate. |
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web page contact: Vonda Yarberry
MissouriState
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