Apply lattice to multiple meshes with same Empty parent

Question

I have a starship model that is made up from several meshes parented to an Empty. I need to deform the entire object using a lattice. The problem is that I cannot apply a lattice modifier to the empty. How should I proceed?

Answer 1

Blender doesn't allow adding modifiers to an object in order to affect the children objects.
There are feature proposals on RCS about different forms of "container objects" that could allow such systems, but it hasn't caught the devs' attention yet.

1. Add the lattice modifier to one of the mesh objects and set it up as you wish.
2. Select all the models you want to be affected
3. ⇧ Shift LMB the object with the modifier to make it active
4. press ⎈ CtrlL > Copy Modifiers

This will only copy the modifier "as is" from the active object to the other selected objects. If you need to make any change in the modifier settings, make sure to first select all the objects with the same modifier and then hold down ⎇ Alt while changing the modifier so that it propagates to the selection.

Changing the lattice object's shape won't require anything special though.