How to rig a shirt with buttons so that the buttons follow the mesh of the shirt I didn't address this in a while because I was busy with something else, but now it has cycled back into my schedule. 
Right now I have a shirt modeled and bones set in place. It's already technically rigged, but the only issue is the buttons.


I'm not entirely sure how to go about connecting them to the shirt's deformations.
I tried to combine them and the shirt into one object, but because of the shirt's modifiers, (Solidify and subsurf, which I don't want to apply yet), the buttons become extremely deformed.
I've tried to match the weight painting intensity where a button is at in correspondence with the shirt, but that doesn't seem to work, maybe it has to do with the specifics of where the button is?


Is there a way to make the buttons follow the shirt's deformations without deforming the mesh vertices of the button?
I know that if I probably apply the modifiers on the shirt and combine it with the buttons, it would be okay, but I'm not okay with doing that just yet with the shirt.



I rigged the shirt by deleting all vertex groups, assigning empty groups to the mesh from the armature, and then assigned automatic groups in the weight paint menu.

Is there a way to do this?
You may do it using vertex and object parenting.


Select the vertex where you want to place the button and snap the cursor to it. In Object Mode add an Empty there.


Now select the Empty, then the mesh and enter Edit Mode. Select three vertices around the button and press Ctrl+P-->Make Vertex Parent. Finally parent the button object to an Empty. (Ctrl+P-->Object (Keep Transform)).