Smooth bind and skeleton hierarchy (Spider)
 

I have a simple spider and skeleton for the 8 legs. I believe the existing joint hierarchy is correct. If I take any leg and create an IK Handle for it, it works fine. When I smooth bind the leg joint to the leg, it works fine. Moving the IK handle causes the leg to bend and deform peoperly. Here's the catch:
If I try and move the entire "Spider" group, any of the bound legs break apart from the body as I move the group. So, no animation until I figure it out. I've tried different hierarchies of legs and skeletons but to no avail.
Anybody have any ideas or can anyone look at the existing model?

Thanks in advance!

I assume you mean the legs stay at their position, as the body moves? That's normal IK behavior. To move the whole thing, you'd need to group all the IK handles and the root joint together.

No, as I move the spider forward(Z), the leg which has the IK detaches and moves forward (Z) ahead of the spider!
The skeleton stays rooted to the body properly.

Hmm, in that case, perhaps you need to turn the "sticky" option on in the IK handle attributes. That's a new "feature" :rolleyes: of 5.0.

Looked @ the File...
The Joint heirchy is NOT correct...
Theres almost too many problems to list.
Here's just a few.

1. There is no joints in the body, only 8 separate skeletons for the legs. they need to be connected with a root joint. So that you can select the root and move the entire skeleton.

2. For some reason you have the leg joints parented to the leg
surface. You can parent the surface to the joints (as in robots) or if the legs were more segmented.. but not the other way around.
( it looks like you tried to parent them the correct way but selected in the wrong order) select child first.

3. But if your gonna parent the surface to the joint, you dont bind it too. one or the other.

4. when finished you should be able to bind or parent the sufaces to a single skeleton. when you move the root of the skeleton the bound surfaces should follow along. you need to get to that point before you even think about ik's.

5. then you have everything grouped together.( 8 separate skeletons that are parented to 8 separate surfaces and the body ) when you move the group it looks fine. ( even though it's all wrong ) Its only when you add the iks or try to bind- your getting a double transformation.

I'd suggest looking at some rigging/binding tutorials first.
Keep with it. The best way to learn is by doing it over..
and over... and over...
Joe

Thanks for your advice. I've tried sooooo many different things and I've looked at 3 or 4 books for different clues. I've spent most of my time just trying to learn basic modeling techniques and I haven't done many animations. I appreciate the time you spent to look at it and point out the flaws. It's sometimes more useful to have 10 minutes of expert guidance than spinning your wheels for hours!

what up