Vertex Clusters and parenting

[qwigs]

Here's a question. I use vertex clusters to animate things like faces and whatnot since there's absolutely NO weighting required. It all works perfectly, however, if I try to parent the little 'C' to a controller of any type, the 'C' disassociates itself from all the vertexes I assigned to it. What up wit dat? And is there any way to get Maya to stop doing this?
I had a thought that I might have to re-assign all the verts back to the 'C' once it abandoned them. But that's just me.

To avoid any further confusion, I obviously use a marrage of conventional bones with the vertex clusters so if I have a head and I use the bones to move it, the vertex clusters stay where they are.. i.e. they don't move with the head, and they start going wonky when I resize the model.

[warpcat]

It's been a while, but you probably need to make the cluster NOT be "relative". If it's relative, the components will only updated based on the data applied directly to transformation channels of the cluster handle. Since it's parented, the translate attrs aren't changing (for example), so no motion is transfered to the custer components. If it's not relative, then any transformations (parenting, or otherwise) will affect the cluster. If for some reason you really need to leave the cluster relative, then you could try a parent constraint instead.

Finally, I moved away from clusters years ago, and just use joints (and smooth binding) for everything. There are more tools for dealing with joints and smooth binds (mirroring, copying, etc), and clusters and give one a headache from time to time. Just my 2c.

[qwigs]

Thanks a lot. That worked perfectly.

Before since vertex clusters never worked for me I liked them, but never used them, and I always had to use bones to rig a face. I found that trying to animate a face by using joints was something like painting a room with no edge tape or drop cloths.

[warpcat]

Heh, to each their own right? I had to use clusters to do facial animation for years, and ever since "they" said I could use joints, I've never looked back Glad that worked for you.

[joojaa]

Joints with smooth bind are clusters! Except you cant controll the order in wich they are applied (altough concurent handling is a boon in many cases). This mans that you clould dio everything with clusters you can with bones, only the succesive nature of clusters makes thi sgharder to plan if you dont have a intellect that can track very complex dependencies once you sytart using more than one overlapping movement.