I am currently working on modeling out a robot character that has many pieces to it. I have tried to avoid sculpting and used more basic geometry to keep the topology simple. All the pieces are still separate and I will need to rig it for animation. My question is this, should I join all the objects together or should I parent the smaller pieces to a main piece? How will that effect rigging? I could be also going about the whole process wrong. I have been struggling with hard surface mechanical vs soft surface organic processes in general and what to do differently.
Hi Emily CCGGorgon ,
You can leave the Pieces as separate Objects and Parent them to an Armature. See for instance this Course:
https://cgcookie.com/courses/learn-how-to-rig-anything-in-blender-fundamentals-of-rigging
Yes, if you're unsure of what to do or how to approach the goals your working towards, you can watch the fundamentals of modeling and rigging, those will clear your doubts and you'll be on your way.
https://cgcookie.com/courses/fundamentals-of-3d-mesh-modeling-in-blender
https://cgcookie.com/courses/blender-mesh-modeling-bootcamp
https://cgcookie.com/courses/learn-how-to-rig-anything-in-blender-fundamentals-of-rigging
I think a good way to approach the thinking is, see how things are in real life, you can imitate it in 3D to follow the same principals. Like a car for example, the factory lines it has where things are separated and come together later. The doors have to be a separate part from the chassis or they wouldn't open. So if your modeling and rigging a car, just look for reference and think how it makes sense to work like in real life.