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I’ve had a long week and I’m exhausted. Been watching hours and hours of tutorials. Probably not enough on rigging. I’m struggling with this.

https://i.imgur.com/065svY0.png

Even once the spikes were joined with the rest of the mesh they wouldn't move in Pose Mode. I added bones for the spikes (tried with them separate from the rest of the armature. Didn't work, so I tried connecting them to the spine). I select the mesh spikes and then select the Meta-Rig: Parent -> With Automatic Weights. I also tried joining the spikes to the body mesh.

When I move the Meta-Rig around in Pose Mode, the spikes don’t move with everything—the armature bones move, but the mesh spikes stretch and deform. I don't want to animate the spikes, just need them to move with the body; they protrude from the character's back. What am I doing wrong here?

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Don't add bones to the spikes, but instead, just have the weight the spikes to the max with the corresponding "spine" bone. So for example, take the top two spikes, and weight paint them so they only move with the top back bone before the neck. You'd only need to add bones to the spikes if you intend to move them with the bones that you placed inside them. If they're static, just weight them to whatever back-bone makes sense for the position.

The same goes for other things that protrude/hang off a character. For example, if your character had a backpack, you'd set the weight for the backpack to move with the back bone. If your character had a watch, you'd weight the entire watch to move with the forearm's bone.

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  • $\begingroup$ It’s taken a whole hour to do one spike. I tried to hide the rest of the mesh but apparently it won’t remain hidden in Weight Paint Mode. Is Weight Painting meant to be tedious, time-consuming, and painful? I skipped one step in this whole process (Retropology), and all hell has broken loose. Blender is nearly unusable. What started as a smooth learning experience has turned into constant freezes (Not Responding) and crashes. I can’t do anything in this program anymore. It’s so bad that it’s affecting the performance of other software on my computer. $\endgroup$
    – Albert
    Commented Aug 3, 2020 at 21:39
  • $\begingroup$ I spent so much time creating my model using Sculpt Mode and I’m expected to redo it with Retropology; something that looks time-consuming and boring and will probably cause the model to lose a lot of its detail. Something I’m learning about 3D modeling is it lets you have fun with Sculpt Mode & Dyntopo, but once you create a complex model you’re at a deadend, and your only option is Retropology if you intend to complete the other stages of the modeling process. I suppose I’ll have to go through with the Retropology, or just give up on the whole thing. Thanks for the response. $\endgroup$
    – Albert
    Commented Aug 3, 2020 at 21:40
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, you're not supposed to use an armature with a sculpted object for a number of reasons. Weight painting is one of them. Look online, there may be retopo solutions that handle it automatically. If you're just looking to pose it once and not animate it, take a look at the pose brush in the sculpt mode. But yeah, retopo-ing a sculpt is how these things are done. All the detail is kept when you bake that to a texture, like a normal or a bump/displacement map. In 3d, low polycounts is the name of the game. Even more so in animation. It's hell to animate high verts, and even worse for playback. $\endgroup$
    – AxiDes
    Commented Aug 3, 2020 at 22:01

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