Hierarchical Bones

Summary

This lesson explores one of the primary ways to connect artwork to bones: Hierarchical Connections. This method involves nesting artwork directly under a bone in the hierarchy, causing it to inherit the bone's transformations (position, rotation, and scale) without deforming the actual shape. This approach is highly efficient for performance.

Step by Step

1. 00:25
   Preparing Elements

   Ensure you have both a bone (or bone chain) and the artwork (procedural shape or raster image) ready on your artboard.
2. 00:36
   Parenting Artwork

   In the hierarchy panel, drag and drop your artwork layer onto the specific bone you want it to follow.
3. 00:43
   Testing Inheritance

   Rotate, move, or scale the parent bone. You will see the child artwork inherit these transformations instantly.
4. 01:34
   Creating Modular Limbs

   For an arm, nest separate segments (e.g., upper arm, forearm, hand) under their respective bones in a chain to create a functioning articulated limb.
5. 01:57
   Attaching Accessories

   For non-deforming items like a shield, simply drop the group onto the "hand" bone to make it follow the limb's movement.
6. 02:21
   Adjusting Draw Order

   If the attached accessory appears in the wrong visual depth, use Draw Rules to place it correctly in front of or behind other limb segments.

Notes About Current Rive

• Performance Benefit: Hierarchical connections are more performant than binding/weighting because the engine doesn't need to recalculate vertex positions—it just applies a simple transform.
• No Deformation: Changing the _length_ of a bone will not affect the scale or shape of a hierarchically connected child; it only affects the position of children further down the chain.
• Vector vs. Raster: This method works identically for both vector shapes and imported raster images.