9

422 Chapter 12: Animation
150%, the size of its children and the distance
between the children and the parent are also scaled
by 150%.
Unlink ing Objects
ClickUnlinkSelectiontoremovethe
link from selec ted objects to their parents. Any
children of the selected object are unaffected.
You can quickly un lin k an entire hierarchy by
double-clicking the root object to select the object
and all of its children. Then click Unlink Selection.
Linking Anima ted Objects
You should establish links before you begin
animating objects. The lin kage of objects with
Select and Link c an not be animated; the link
remains in force throughout the entire animation.
If you want your objects to be linked during one
part of the animation but not another, you can a
Link constraint (page 2–403) to change the linkage
at specific frames.
Displ ay ing Li nk s
A complex mesh hierarchy can be displayed with
the link s v i sible, or even with the lin ks replacing
the mesh objects. To display links, first select
the lin ked objects. On the Display panel > Link
Display rollout (page 1–58),turnonDisplayLinks
to see the links. You can also turn on Link Replaces
Object to see only the links and not the objects.
Select and Link
Main toolbar > Selec t and Link
UsetheSelectandLinkbuttontodefinethe
hierarchical relationship (page 3–951) between two
objects by linking them as child and paren t.
You link from the currently selected object (child)
to any other object (parent).
You can link an object to a closed group. When
you do, the object becomes a child of the group
parent r ather than any member of t he group. The
entire group flashes to show that you’ve linked to
the group.
A child inherits the tra nsformations (move,
rotate, scale) applied to the parent, but the child’s
transformations ha v e no effect on the parent. If
you want t he child not to inherit the transforms,
use the Link Inheritance (Selected) U tility (page
2–435) or use the controls found in Link Info (page
2–499) in the Hierarchy panel.
You can also create hierarchical linkages using
Schematic View (page 3–638).UsetheConnect
button on the Schematic View toolbar to create
hierarchical linkages between nodes.
Procedure
To link two objects:
1.
Click S elect and L
ink.
2. Drag a line fr om an
object (the child) to any
other object (the parent).
Note: You do not need to select the child object
first.
Unlink Selection
Main toolbar > Unlink S e le ction
Use the Unlink Se
lect ion button to remove the
hierarchical relationship (page 3–951) between two
objects.
Unlink Selecti
on detaches a child object from its
parent object.