ABSTRACT
Warning : Beware of foster parents. Occasionally, while working on a rig with a referenced geometry fi le, I had a foster parent node show up in the outliner. I couldn’t quite see why it was there. I deleted it and nothing seemed to break. However, I have seen a foster parent node show up when the geometry’s attributes are locked in the geometry fi le. When that fi le is referenced in and then skinned, a foster parent (duplicate) is made in the rig fi le and it can make things get a little messy. Th is is why it is important not to lock the geometry attributes in the geometry fi le. Foster parent nodes show up normally when you parent something under a referenced item and then unload the referenced item. Th e foster parent shows up as a place holder. It shows up when you unload the reference, save, or export. Th e foster parent should not stay around. It should go away once the reference is reloaded. If you continue to have foster parents, double check that you do not have extra references or have locked attributes on the geometry.
