Chapter 12

Animating Object Deformations

Looking at the title of this chapter, you may find yourself wondering how this chapter is different from Chapter 10. Both chapters cover animation, but this chapter covers the cool things you can do in Blender if you're animating with a fully rigged mesh. Chapter 10 covers what is often referred to as object animation — that is, animating the attributes of a single object.

With an animation rig, you have more bits and pieces to manage, keep track of, and control. Managing all that additional complexity can be daunting if you have the Outliner and the Graph Editor to work with. Fortunately, Blender offers a few more features that help make rigged character animation easier to wrap your head around.