Blender - Using an empty object as a parent

Learn how to use an empty object as a parent to move (or rotate and scale) more than one object at once.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Blender
• 3D
• kiliankoe
• empty
• object
• parent
• move
• rotate
• scale

[MrRik338]

arnold get in tha choppa!

[Kiliankoe]

@MrRik338 wait... what?

[flotch93]

would this work if i wanted an animated character to hold on to the lightsaber?

[Kiliankoe]

@flotch93 Probably, you could parent the lightsaber to the hand of the character. It would definitely keep you from having to animate the lightsaber to stay in the hand.

[TheVideoGuardian]

I wonder how to UN-parent something... another hot key?

Seems to me like that's something that SHOULD be in the "outliner" window, because it's got a hierarchical view and you could easily see what's parented to what. (Oh well, blender likes hot keys better I guess...)

Thanks for the tutorial being short and to the point!

Although, you should always mention what version of blender you are using, so that in the future if things change a bunch, people will know what version it's meant for.

[Kiliankoe]

@TheVideoGuardian Alt+P clears the parent for the selected object ;)

Of course you can also do it through the outliner, but since I haven't been using Blender for ages I forgot how. In Maya you can drag objects around with and do parenting with clicking of the mouse wheel. Try dragging objects around in the outliner with your left mouse button, maybe that works.

Thanks! I appreciate compliments :P

You're right, I should've mentioned it. But I just don't know anymore now ;)

[MrRik338]

@Kiliankoe get in the choppa!!!

[Kiliankoe]

@TubeAllStar Thanks :)

[TubeAllStar]

Short. Simple. Direct.

Everything a tutorial should be. :)

[Kiliankoe]

Rigging is what you're referring to. It's the process of creating non-visible bones (not the real bones, just representatives) to control your character or object more easily.

I however do not know how to do this in Blender. I can recommend the Blenderartist forums. Just google it, there's a lot of people willing to help!