# Parenting and Hierarchies

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One of the other fundamental requirements in rigging is the relating of one item to another, brought together through parent/child hierarchies. These relationships are the foundations for FK (Forward Kinematics) making is possible to animate complex setups far more easily. Rich explains the how's and whys of setting up these hierarchies in modo and details the tools that facilitate their creation.

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Tab | Time | Chapter | Description
1 | 00:17 | Parenting Def. | Definition of what Parenting is and how it pertains to rigging.
2 | 03:45 | Hierarchy Def. | Definition of a Hierarchy with examples of how they work with rig setups.
3 | 06:21 | Hierarchy Tools | Various tools and options for defining parenting in Item hierarchies.
4 | 12:21 | Dynamic Parenting | Explanation of Dynamic Parenting with examples of how to set it up and use it.
5 | 16:31 | DP Example | Rich uses his infamous Robot Leg to demonstrate his use of Dynamic Parenting for rigging.
| 21:14 | Total Video Time |

Frequently Asked Questions--

Q.) He keeps using the word "Scope" what does this mean?

> A.) Its just another term for Group Locator or Folder.

Q.) "Compensation" isn't that used with Constraints too?

> A.) Why yes, yes it is. Check out the "Constraints" and "Constraint in Action" sections in the training for more info.

Q.) The Mech rig looks cool! when can we play with that?

> A.) This is not the mech you are looking for... move along. In all seriousness, that Mech was planned to be the subject of the training originally. I put a ton of time into building it, solved some pretty interesting problems and it is an excellent subject for a tutorial. Unfortunately when I started to breakdown the actual lesson, I found that with a topic this complex (without a companion resource like this) it would be impossible to teach the "Art" of rigging. I would be spending all my time drilling down into the tools to show how they worked instead of showing how to solve rigging problems. This is why you have the training the way it is now, broken into rigging foundation and rigging tutorials. In time I will offer the mech tutorial for you fine aspiring riggers to learn from, and it will fit nicely into all this riggy goodness.

Q.) How is he selecting an item in the 3D view and jumping right to where it is nested in the item list?

> A.) He is pressing the "f" key when the mouse pointer is over the item list. It will find the selected item, jumping to it in the Items list.

Resources--

Links to the modo in-line help system
Docs: Parenting
Docs: Compensation
Docs: Constraints

Links to other pages in this training
Training: Inverse Kinematics
Training: Constraints
Training: Constraints in Action

File--

Links to the modo scenes used in the video
(click to open in modo)
File: ParentsHiers_01.lxo

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