Having an issue here, I have several IK target bones to control my armature that I do not want to influence the deformation of the mesh directly. I went ahead and double checked that all of these bones have 'deform' unchecked. Then, I parented my mesh to the armature selecting 'automatic weight' and weight is being applied to these IK target bones, additionally vertex groups are being created in the mesh corresponding to these bones. It appears that unchecking 'deform' is doing nothing whatsoever.
I understand that I could just go an delete the vertex groups for these IK target bones. This doesnt solve my problem though, because these IK tartget bones are in a sense, 'stealing weight' from the bones near them, bones which I want 'automatic weights' function to give more influence to.
Additional details: The bones aren't technically IK bones, they are the ones controlling the hooks for a curve defining my spline IK for this model's tail (the ones aligned vertically along tail). They should have no function other than moving the hooks (no affect on mesh). Rather, the tail bones involved in the actual spline IK (the bones beneath them, running horizontal) should have full affect when applying weight to the tail. Instead most of the weight is being given to the bones controlling the hooks.
Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks.
