Mastering Parenting In Blender: A Guide To Connecting Objects

Connecting Objects in Blender

In Blender, parenting is a powerful technique for connecting multiple objects together in a relationship. The parent object acts as the controller, while the child objects follow the transformations of their parent. Understanding parenting allows greater organizational control and automation during animation and modeling.

What is Parenting

Parenting refers to linking one or more Blender objects (the children) to a controlling parent object. The child objects inherit certain behaviors from their parent:

When the parent object transforms, the child objects transform along with it.
Children objects can optionally inherit rotations and scaling from the parent or just position.
The connection is hierarchical – parents can have their own parents, creating chains of transformations.

Parenting enables logical grouping, animation shortcuts, and controlled transformations. It connects objects together through an intuitive family relationship.

Table of Contents

Explanation of Parent-Child Relationships

The parent object sits at the top of the hierarchy. This controller object passes its transformations directly down to its associated child objects. Specific key properties of this relationship include:

Changes to the parent’s position, rotation, and scale directly affect child objects.
Children can have their own child objects, extending the hierarchical tree.
Children can have multiple parents, blending transformations.
Parents can control any number of children objects simultaneously.
The connections between parents and children create transformation chains, keeping related objects together as coherent groups.

Understanding these cascading relationships enables powerful parent-child object hierarchies in Blender.

Parenting Methods

Blender offers different techniques for setting up parent-child relationships between objects. Each parenting method suits certain use cases and types of objects.

Basic Parenting Steps

The standard workflow for parenting an object is:

Select the Child object(s) first.
Shift select the Parent object second.
Press Control-P to open the Parent menu.
Choose the type of parenting operation.

This establishes the hierarchical relationship, with transformation data flowing down from parent to children.

Parent to Vertex, Bone, and Armature

In addition to object parenting, Blender allows advanced parent types:

Vertex Parenting – Parents child objects to a specific vertex point on a mesh.
Bone Parenting – Parents objects to specific bones within an armature for animation.
Armature Deform – Applies mesh deformations from an armature using an automatic vertex group.

These specialized techniques enable advanced animation control mechanisms.

Vertex Parenting Code Example

import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

# Vertex coordinate to use as parent point
vertex = Vector((0.0, 0.0, 1.0)) 

# Parent cube to vert
cube = bpy.data.objects["Cube"]
cube.parent_type = 'VERTEX'
cube.parent_vertices = (vertex,)

This Python script vertex parents a cube to the defined vector coordinate point. The cube will now move precisely with that single point on the mesh.

Armature Parenting Example

import bpy

# Armature object    
armature = bpy.data.objects["Armature"]

# Mesh object
mesh = bpy.data.objects["Mesh"]  

# Select armature    
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = armature 

# Parent mesh to armature 
mesh.select_set(True) 
armature.select_set(True)  
bpy.ops.object.parent_set(type='ARMATURE_AUTO')

This example takes a mesh object and parents it to an armature using automatic weighting. The mesh will now deform based on bone movements.

Parent Relationship Settings

Blender allows fine control over parent-child relationships. Configuration options determine exactly how transformations propagate.

Keep Transformation vs Clear Transformation

The main configuration toggle is Keep Transformation. This applies child objects current scale, rotation, and position before parenting. If disabled with Clear Transformation, the child resets to the origin.

For example, an off-center cube would suddenly snap to the parent on clearing transforms. So this option helps preserve any manual object manipulation before setting up the parenting.

Setting Parent Inverse and Vertex Parenting Influence

Additional settings are available in the Object > Relations menu:

Parent Inverse – Compensates for unwanted scaling issues with non-uniform scale parents.
Vertex Connect Distance – Controls proximity range for vertex parenting relations.
Vertex Parent Influence – Blends weight of vertex group influence vs original mesh coordinates.

Fine tuning these values avoids problem with disproportionate inherit scaling and jittery vertex parenting behavior.

Troubleshooting Issues

While incredibly useful, object parenting can sometimes produce confusing issues during modeling and animation. Fortunately these problems can typically be mitigated.

Fixing Unwanted Object Transformations

If child objects start distorting oddly or animating incorrectly, the likely culprit is the parent relationship. Try these troubleshooting steps:

Disable inheritance of Rotation and Scale if not needed.
Clear Parent Inverse setting under Relations panel.
Apply transformations on parent using Ctrl-A > Scale or Rotation.

Restricting inherited transforms often alleviates unwanted distortion issues.

Detaching Problematic Parent-Child Links

To completely remove faulty parent-child connections:

Select only the child objects.
Press Alt-P to open the Clear Parent menu.
Choose Clear Parent while preserving transforms.

This detaches the children from parents cleanly while maintaining their positions. Parenting issues should now be resolved.

Animating Parented Objects

One of the most powerful aspects of parenting is accelerated animation through transformation chains. Moving parents results in children automatically animating.

Keyframing Object Relationships Over Time

Even the parent connections themselves can be animated on keyframes:

Jump to different times on the timeline.
Change the parent-children object hierarchies.
Insert Keyframes for the modified relationships.

Now parenting configurations will transition between keyframed states during animation playback. This opens creative possibilities.

Using Drivers and Constraints with Parenting

Parenting chains can integrate with drivers or constraints for further control options:

Drive parents with bone transforms or other object properties.
Chain Children to path constraints following splines.
Mix Parenting with Child-Of, Transformation, and Pivot constraints on objects.

Constraints and drivers stack cleanly on top of parenting for maximizing the power of object and data hierarchies.