Ok, so I made alittle lamp, and now Im working on animating it (yes, copying Pixar, but still. Just trying to learn alittle more about animating). I made it using all polys, and I smooth binded it to a rig I made up. Now, I have a spot light coming out from where light should be. I have the bulb surface itself, parented to the light. So, if I move the bulb, the light goes with it. If I select the bulb mesh, the spot light is also selected. Great.

Now, when I go to animate the model moving around (by rotating one of the joints), the spot light dosent move with the rest of the model. What gives?

Here's a quick playblast as to what Im talking about. yes, I know I need to paint weights on the mesh so it dosent get all deformed like it is. One thing at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc0aAzNt2SI

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- Hybrid

You could make a circle parent to the joint of the lamp and set the light in outliner like this

-circle
|__light


i think this will work out

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Art Director
www.sevenbullsgames.com

So, couldnt I just parent the spot light, to the closest joint? So when the joint moves, the light goes with it?

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- Hybrid

oh i think i get it...
the bulb is attached to the arm of the lamp itself right? they aren't seperate pieces of geometery

which means, because the whole piece of geometry isn't moving the light isn't moving as well

so yeah, what coldwave suggested and what you thought of should work

but i would think you'd rather parent constaint it rather than parent it.
the only difference really is that you can control a few parameters and also have more freedom on how you organize stuff in your outliner

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
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Thanks for the help fella's. I parented the light to the nearest joint (which happened to be right above it), and everything is all good now. Thanks again!

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- Hybrid