WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.010 --> 00:00:05.380 Parenting in Blender is a fundamental part of the rigging process. 2 00:00:05.380 --> 00:00:07.340 But what is parenting? 3 00:00:07.340 --> 00:00:12.460 Well, parenting is when you form a parent-child relationship between two objects. 4 00:00:12.460 --> 00:00:16.800 And a parent-child relationship is when a child object inherits the transformations 5 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:18.380 of a parent object. 6 00:00:18.380 --> 00:00:23.440 However, the child can still have its own local transformations in addition to the transformations 7 00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:25.840 inherited from the parent. 8 00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:29.800 It's kind of like how kids have to follow their parents when their parents move from 9 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:31.520 one city to another. 10 00:00:31.520 --> 00:00:36.080 But once they're in the new city, the kids can still walk to school on their own. 11 00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:40.400 But why would we want to parent objects to another object? 12 00:00:40.400 --> 00:00:45.000 Oftentimes parenting helps to more easily control the transformation and pivot points 13 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:48.280 of a group of objects for the sake of animation. 14 00:00:48.280 --> 00:00:53.040 Some examples include parenting fingers to a hand, parenting objects or papers to the 15 00:00:53.040 --> 00:00:57.040 surface of a desk, or parenting leaves to a tree. 16 00:00:57.040 --> 00:00:59.240 Allow me to demonstrate. 17 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:04.200 Let's take our cube, for example, and duplicate it with Shift-D. 18 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:07.900 Let's make this duplicate cube our parent object. 19 00:01:07.900 --> 00:01:12.520 Just for visual clarity's sake, let's scale this cube up a bit so that we know for sure 20 00:01:12.520 --> 00:01:14.180 it's the parent cube. 21 00:01:14.180 --> 00:01:20.160 We can then select both cubes using Shift-Left-Click, and then right-click for a context menu. 22 00:01:20.160 --> 00:01:23.100 Go down to Parent and select Object. 23 00:01:23.100 --> 00:01:27.800 For hotkey users, you can press Ctrl-P after you have selected your objects to access the 24 00:01:27.800 --> 00:01:30.280 same parenting menu. 25 00:01:30.280 --> 00:01:35.160 Let's go ahead and start moving, rotating, and scaling our larger cube, and the smaller 26 00:01:35.160 --> 00:01:36.800 cube should follow. 27 00:01:36.800 --> 00:01:39.680 However, it doesn't. 28 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:44.680 Looks like we parented the wrong cube, and accidentally made the smaller cube the parent 29 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:45.680 cube. 30 00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:50.080 Since this isn't what we want, let's undo that with Ctrl-Z. 31 00:01:50.080 --> 00:01:51.520 Now why did this happen? 32 00:01:51.520 --> 00:01:56.760 Well, it's very important to make sure you select your intended parent object last. 33 00:01:56.760 --> 00:02:01.080 This will highlight the object in a slightly brighter yellow outline, indicating that it 34 00:02:01.080 --> 00:02:03.160 is the active object. 35 00:02:03.160 --> 00:02:07.160 Once we've ensured that our active object is the one we want to parent our objects 36 00:02:07.160 --> 00:02:10.600 to, we can repeat the parent action again. 37 00:02:10.600 --> 00:02:14.320 Right-click, go to Parenting, and select Object. 38 00:02:14.320 --> 00:02:20.060 Now we can move, rotate, and scale our parent cube, and as you can see, our child cube is 39 00:02:20.060 --> 00:02:22.660 following right along. 40 00:02:22.660 --> 00:02:27.280 An important note with parenting is that the pivot point of the child object is completely 41 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:31.600 ignored when inheriting parent transformation. 42 00:02:31.600 --> 00:02:35.980 This includes instances where you select both the child and parent objects. 43 00:02:35.980 --> 00:02:42.020 However, transforming the child object still uses the child's local object origin. 44 00:02:42.020 --> 00:02:46.780 In fact, the child can still move around normally while parented, it will simply be influenced 45 00:02:46.780 --> 00:02:50.500 by the parent's transformations in addition to its own. 46 00:02:50.500 --> 00:02:56.020 A parent object can have multiple children objects, but child objects can only have one 47 00:02:56.020 --> 00:02:57.380 parent. 48 00:02:57.380 --> 00:03:02.340 For example, we can add a new cube to the scene by going to the Add menu, going to Mesh, 49 00:03:02.340 --> 00:03:04.200 and selecting Cube. 50 00:03:04.200 --> 00:03:10.180 This new cube does not currently have a parent, but we could parent it to the same large cube 51 00:03:10.180 --> 00:03:12.660 our other cube is parented to. 52 00:03:12.660 --> 00:03:16.460 This will give our larger cube two child cubes. 53 00:03:16.460 --> 00:03:20.560 One fact, if you want three child cubes, you can actually duplicate one of these cubes 54 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:24.060 and it will still be parented to the same large cube. 55 00:03:24.060 --> 00:03:28.340 However, what if we introduce another parent cube? 56 00:03:28.340 --> 00:03:31.660 Let's say we duplicate the larger cube, so now we have two. 57 00:03:31.660 --> 00:03:37.780 I'm going to name this cube Daddy Cube 1, and this cube Daddy Cube 2. 58 00:03:37.780 --> 00:03:42.940 If we select our child cubes and then parent them to Daddy Cube 2, you'll notice that 59 00:03:42.940 --> 00:03:47.940 all relationship ties to Daddy Cube 1 have been cut. 60 00:03:47.940 --> 00:03:51.660 Transforming Daddy Cube 1 no longer affects the child cubes. 61 00:03:51.660 --> 00:03:57.420 Meanwhile, Daddy Cube 2 now affects the transformations of the child cubes instead. 62 00:03:57.420 --> 00:04:02.660 As you can see, each object can only have one parent, but parents can have multiple 63 00:04:02.660 --> 00:04:03.660 children. 64 00:04:03.660 --> 00:04:06.940 Additionally, we can also have a chain of parents. 65 00:04:06.940 --> 00:04:12.900 If we select Daddy Cube 2 and then select Daddy Cube 1, we can actually make Daddy Cube 66 00:04:12.900 --> 00:04:16.660 1 the parent of Daddy Cube 2. 67 00:04:16.660 --> 00:04:23.260 This will also make Daddy Cube 1 the grandparent, in a way, of our three child cubes. 68 00:04:23.260 --> 00:04:28.800 This chain of parents can go on for as long as you like, but it can't form a loop. 69 00:04:28.800 --> 00:04:34.260 In other words, if you try to parent Daddy Cube 1 to any of its own children or grandchildren 70 00:04:34.260 --> 00:04:39.580 cubes, Blender will prevent you from doing so, as that will form a cyclic dependency, 71 00:04:39.580 --> 00:04:42.040 which is kind of like dividing by zero. 72 00:04:42.040 --> 00:04:45.760 This is the basic idea behind parenting, but it's important to know that it doesn't apply 73 00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:47.780 to only objects. 74 00:04:47.780 --> 00:04:51.140 Parenting works for bones and empties as well. 75 00:04:51.140 --> 00:04:55.940 Bones are what armature objects are made of, also known as rigs or skeletons. 76 00:04:55.940 --> 00:05:02.340 We'll go more into detail about bones in another video, but you can also parent things to empties. 77 00:05:02.340 --> 00:05:06.600 These are objects that contain little to no data except their own basic transformation 78 00:05:06.600 --> 00:05:07.600 data. 79 00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:14.000 They're invisible at render, and are typically used for purposes of organization or reference. 80 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:17.980 You can find them in the Add menu, and can parent them in exactly the same way we did 81 00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:20.580 before with our cubes. 82 00:05:20.580 --> 00:05:25.380 Parenting objects to empties is a common practice, as you'll be able to transform and deform 83 00:05:25.380 --> 00:05:30.720 multiple objects at once very easily if they're all parented to the same empty. 84 00:05:30.740 --> 00:05:34.720 My favorite example of this is when working with environments that contain multiple objects 85 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:36.080 and props. 86 00:05:36.080 --> 00:05:40.460 By parenting all of the environment objects to an empty, you can transform the entire 87 00:05:40.460 --> 00:05:43.880 set very easily with one movement. 88 00:05:43.880 --> 00:05:47.860 As an added bonus, the empty itself does not appear at render time. 89 00:05:47.860 --> 00:05:51.760 This makes it even easier to manually control where the pivot point for your group of objects 90 00:05:51.760 --> 00:05:54.320 will be for transformation. 91 00:05:54.320 --> 00:05:58.840 Now real quick, you may be wondering, how do we unparent an object? 92 00:05:58.840 --> 00:06:00.400 Well, that's simple. 93 00:06:00.400 --> 00:06:05.080 Simply select the object or objects you would like to unparent, and right-click for a context 94 00:06:05.080 --> 00:06:06.280 menu. 95 00:06:06.280 --> 00:06:09.720 Then go to Parent, Clear Parent. 96 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:15.180 For hotkey users, you can press Alt-P to bring up the Unparenting menu. 97 00:06:15.180 --> 00:06:19.940 You might also be curious about what the Clear and Keep Transformation option is for. 98 00:06:19.940 --> 00:06:25.200 This is used for cases where the object you're trying to unparent has already inherited transformation 99 00:06:25.200 --> 00:06:29.900 from its parent for a while, and you want to keep that transformation, but removing 100 00:06:29.900 --> 00:06:34.540 the parent-child relationship actually removes that transformation entirely. 101 00:06:34.540 --> 00:06:41.040 So instead, you want to choose Clear and Keep Transformation under the Unparenting menu. 102 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:45.460 As you can see, despite being unparented, the object has not moved from its previous 103 00:06:45.460 --> 00:06:47.860 location, rotation, and scale. 104 00:06:47.860 --> 00:06:52.260 If you simply choose Clear Parent, it will clear all inherited transformation from the 105 00:06:52.260 --> 00:06:56.860 parent and return it to where it would have been if it was never parented at all.