8

Animating with Forward Kinematics 409
Rotating the parent affects the p osition and orientation of
the child object.
Rotating the child does not affect the parent.
Links act as a one-way conduit to t r a nsmit the
transforms of a parent object to its child object.
If you m ove, rotate, or sca le the p arent, the child
is moved, rotated, or scaled by the same amount.
Because hierarchical links are one-way, moving,
rotating, or scaling the child has no effect on its
parent.
The end result is that transforms applied to a child
object are applied in addition to any transforms
inherited from the child’s parent.
Animating a Parent Object
Only transforms are passed from parent to child.
Animat ing a parent object using move, rotate, or
scale animates the parent and the subtree attached
to the parent.
Animating a parent’s modifiers or creation
parameters has no effect on its descendants.
Moving the root parent moves the whole hierarchy.
Rotation of a parent object is passed to all the child objects.
Animating a Child Object
With forward kinematics, a child is not constrained
by its link to a parent. You can move, rotate, and
scale children independent of their parents.