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Maya: Parenting vs Constraining
By Scott Ryan
Two of the most useful tools in the 3D program Maya are parenting and constraining. They are both used to make one object control the behavior of another, but with subtle and important differences in how they do this. Parenting
With this tool, the object being controlled is called the "child" while the object doing the controlling is the "parent". The child follows the parent in every transformation. If the parent moves along the x axis the child moves the same amount, maintaining the distance between them. If it scales the child changes in size distance between them by the same scale. And if it rotates then the child revolves around it at the same rate. They act as one object, but the child still has some independence and can be animated separately. The actions of the two are combined during animation. For instance, if you animate the child moving up at the same time the parent moves right, the child's final motion will be a diagonal motion up and to the right. To create a child/parent relationship, select the child first and then the parent (holding shift to select multiple objects) and then press "p". The order of selection is very important as the last object selected will always be the parent, even if you select more than two. Constraining
In this case, the controlling object is called the "master" while the object being controlled is called either the "servant" or "slave." I've seen it either way. Constraints offer more precise controls as they consist of many different types. An orient constraint will make the servant rotate in the same way as the master but they will not move together from place to place. A point constraint will do the exact opposite. There are other constraints with more complicated controls, but I won't get into them here. The master object has complete domination over one or more of the servant's transformations. You cannot animate a constrained transform to have a secondary motion added to the master's transform. It is completely overridden. Creating a master/servant relationship is similar to parenting. In this case, you select the master object first and then the servant. Next you select the appropriate constraining method from the Constrain drop down menu. Once again, order is essential. Bass Ackwards?
If you were paying attention, then I'm sure you noticed that the order of selection while parenting is opposite the order while constraining. Parenting selects the controlling object last but constraining selects the controlling object first. I've always found this to be counter intuitive that these two similar actions would have such a difference in how you set them up. Without a decent explanation I just assumed that it was a quirk in Maya left over from newer and newer versions of the program. It wouldn't be the first one I've run into. It wasn't until this morning that I finally realized the reason for the difference. A parent object, like a mother duck, can have a whole slew of child objects following along in its wake, but each child can only have one parent. The selection order allows you to select dozens of objects to assign to the last object selected as a parent. A servant object, however, can have multiple masters. The influences of the multiple masters are averaged when controlling the servant and the amount to which each master controls the servant can be animated. So if you have two masters, one in a character's hand and the other on a table, you can make your character pick up a servant object like, say, an apple, by switching the control from the table to the hand. The constraint's selection order allows you select both the table, hand, and any other master objects first and then assign them to the apple. I wish I'd figured this out sooner, since I've seen so many students get the orders backwards. I could never explain why one was child/parent and the other master/servant. The best I could come up with was, "That's how Maya is sometimes." |
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PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
My 3D Work
My 3D work portfolio page.
www.will-lapuerta.com/3d/index.html
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May, 2012
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