Blender 3D: Characters, Machines, and Scenes for Artists

Parenting the Armature and Mesh using the Automatic Weights tool

In this recipe, we are going to see one of the more commonly used parenting options: the handy Automatic Weights tool.

Getting ready

Start Blender and open the Gidiosaurus_rig_from_scratch_02.blend file.

1. Select the Armature item in the Outliner and press Ctrl + Tab to go out of Pose Mode and enter Object Mode.
2. Go to the Armature window under the Properties sidepanel to switch the Display mode from Wire to Octahedral and deselect the Shapes item.
3. Enable the third Armature layer by clicking on the 3rd button under the Skeleton subpanel.
4. Disable the 13th scene layer to hide the Armor.
5. Go in to Edit Mode and Shift multi-select the MAIN bone, the pole bones and the ctrl bones; in short, all ...