3DS Max link constraint problems with the Biped
polycounter lvl 8
I'm really hoping someone can help me with this weird problem I'm having in 3DSMax:
I'm creating an animation where I am using the Max Biped, and I have her shooting a gun and doing a tactical reload. Therefore, I need to use link constraints so that the gun and extra clip start off in their holsters, then the gun gets drawn, and then the extra clip is drawn and exchanged with the original clip in the gun, which then gets put back in its holster.
The problem with this is that as soon as I link either object to a part of the biped, the pivots seem to suddenly go off. I have the gun animated on it's own so that it will twirl when drawn, but moving it with the rotate tool warps and distorts the object. When the clip needs to be turned in the hand to align with the gun, the same problem again--any use of the rotate tool completely warps it.
I keep trying different combinations of using the link constraints to avoid the problem, but nothing seems to work and still have the objects constrained where I need them constrained. I've tried partially linking them to the world while I manually put them where I need them, but that stills buggers it later on. I've tried parenting it first, then adding a link constraint later on, but that doesn't work either. I've tried to just manually do as much as I can, but I'm at the point where if I don't figure out this problem, I don't think I can continue.
Thanks for reading, and please help!!
I'm creating an animation where I am using the Max Biped, and I have her shooting a gun and doing a tactical reload. Therefore, I need to use link constraints so that the gun and extra clip start off in their holsters, then the gun gets drawn, and then the extra clip is drawn and exchanged with the original clip in the gun, which then gets put back in its holster.
The problem with this is that as soon as I link either object to a part of the biped, the pivots seem to suddenly go off. I have the gun animated on it's own so that it will twirl when drawn, but moving it with the rotate tool warps and distorts the object. When the clip needs to be turned in the hand to align with the gun, the same problem again--any use of the rotate tool completely warps it.
I keep trying different combinations of using the link constraints to avoid the problem, but nothing seems to work and still have the objects constrained where I need them constrained. I've tried partially linking them to the world while I manually put them where I need them, but that stills buggers it later on. I've tried parenting it first, then adding a link constraint later on, but that doesn't work either. I've tried to just manually do as much as I can, but I'm at the point where if I don't figure out this problem, I don't think I can continue.
Thanks for reading, and please help!!
Replies
I THINK I've figured out what the big problem was and I THINK I'm good to go now!! (Knock on wood, keeping fingers crossed, and all that)
To those curious -- The problem seems to have been solely the objects being unhappy to get linked on anything that was parented to anything else (not including the actual biped??). I figured this out because, of my gun and two clips in use, ONE clip was being happy, while the other two kept buggering themselves. After pulling out hairs, going through the process again and again, step by step, I finally realized there had to be one tiny thing different from the clip that was ok, and the other two objects that weren't.
The happy clip was initially linked to the gun, which was a child to nothing else. The gun and the other clip got linked to holsters placed on a belt placed on the biped pelvis. I don't know if the pivots or whatever was off on one of those pieces, but now that I've initially linked these two objects to just the biped pelvis, they seem loads happier.
Phew.
Now back to business!