I am having an impossible time setting my armature to auto-deform the mesh like I've seen a dozen times in YT tutorials. Every time I attempt to do so, I fail. Here is the workflow:
- Select the mesh
- Shift+Select the armature
- Select Object - Parent - Armature Deform with Automatic Weights (Note: Ctrl + P does not show me any armature parenting options; I don't know why; seems to work for everyone else).
[Here is a link to my .blend file][1]. Just in case you are interested. I'm basically at my wit's end. I've recreated armatures for this stupid thing three times. Every single time, I watch someone in the tut very easily move their mesh around with Pose mode after they parent. But I can't. Ever.
If I need to use weight painting to do this manual, I will. But I would really like to know what I'm doing wrong since the manual way is going to add a lot of time. At this stage in my education, I'm still trying to understand all the basic functionality and this is one of those.