Rigging Question

Good morning… this is my first time posting here… am notsure if am in right area…
I started out usingBlender with 2.49 version (I think it was) I created a few characters…playing around with it… nothing reallygreat… but created them and added the bones and posed them and did a couplesmall animation videos…as I try to learn… I got it all to work… am now on 2.63 version and cannot get the bonesto work …My character might have 9 or 10 parts… I usually add UV Sphere forthe head, the neck, the body, two for each leg (I’m trying to create acat)… I add the bones, creating thebody bone first, then creating the legs and then the neck and head… When I’ve done the extruding they are allconnected… if I click on one, they all are showing active… I cannot get thembinded to the body so when I move them, the whole leg moves… right now, when I move the bone to pose it,the body won’t move with it… I’ve read many tutorials, watched videos,followed the instructions and not working… I’m not sure what I am doing wrong here… I had no issues with 2.49 version trying tolearn it, but this version can’t figure it out… I feel like I"ve gonebackwards in my learning…
thank you
Barbara

My posting went in weird… was having problems with website being very very slow when I posted…

I have been reading tutorials, the manual, watching tutorials and am not able to get the bones working right in the body… I did the weight painting and all but still nothing. My character has body, neck, head, four legs (each leg two pieces), feet and a tail… in the old version 2.49 of blender I had no problems rigging my character with the bones and it all worked perfectly for me… now am trying to get the bones rigged in 2.63 and having no luck. I entered my body bone and then extruded the other bones from it… used the weight painting and when I move the bones, it looks like I’m stretching taffy… it is a huge mess… I joined all the body parts into one and redid all the bones, and selected the body and then the bones and did the parenting thing… did the weight painting but still same issue… can’t get them to work … I rewatched video tuts and reread others… cannot figure out what I am missing or what am doing wrong… I want to try and get it working in this version but I might have to go back to 2.49 to get the bones rigged… I’m only a beginner in this 3D animation stuff but am trying to learn… I’m hoping I can create my characters and MAYBE create some short videos to go with my stories I write for my blog of children’s stories. I really need some help in rigging my bones so can pose my animals… thank you in advance for your help … Barbara

If you did all that in 2.49 then 2.63 is the same; panel and control layout is different.

So, your Armature, is it working as is in pose mode before you parent?

After I set up the bones, I can move them and they move fine … only the bones… without the object… after doing the weight painting I was reading about, if I move the bone, not much of the object moved… best way to explain is it looked like I was pulling taffy… most of the object stayed in place and parts of it stretched out… I tried making it all one piece instead of individual pcs and that didn’t work…I am very new to learning this 3D animation stuff…so I am not sure what I’m missing … am about to start playing with it again… to see what I can do today…

Make sure that object is clean before parenting: No vertex doubles, no scaling on object with scale of one, there should be no Armature modifier on it, and there should be no Vertex Groups listed.

When you parent the Armature what option are you selecting?

When I parented the Armature, I selected the bod part then selected the bone, clicked Ctrl+P and selected Bone.
I found a tutorial and watched it this morning and followed it step by step and got my cat working like it should. I think when I watched the tutorials dealing with weight painting and all, I confused me… Am just trying to learn this and so pretty much need tutorials that are fairly easy to follow starting out. I followed this tutorial this morning and made notes and was able to put in the bones, bind them to the body part and it is working… thank you for your help… Now am going to try and do the dog…I did it about 2 years ago but got tied up with something else and didn’t continue learning so now am back with it… I write a blog of children’s stories and thought it would be cute to create short animation to go with them sometimes… But I need to get better at sculpting to create a better looking character… mine are not so good yet… but am working on learning it…
thank you again and have a good day am going back to work on my dog… and figure out how to import him into the file with the cat…
Barbara