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Correcting local axis on joints in Maya

polycounter lvl 10
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stabbington polycounter lvl 10
I'm still very new to Maya but I'm having trouble getting local axes on bones/joints to export correcetly from Maya to an fbx file.

The basic issue I'm having is that any time I change the local axis pivot orientation (using D and rotate) on a joint, Maya will put these values into a Custom Axis Orientation but not alter the actual Local Axis in any way. Switching back to local reverts to the unaltered pivot.

I have a lot of errant local pivot orientations on an already rigged and bound file for use in Unity but Maya will not store any corrections I make to the orientations of Local axes. I can, much like creating the Custom Axis Orientation, change the orientation on the bones by changing the Local Axis Rotation on the bones, but neither of these export - only ever the incorrect Local Axis orientation. Is there any way to actually permanently correct the Local Axis of something so that it will export correctly?

The only thing I've found so far has been to detach the bound skin and use the Orient Joint tool, which will give me a better result (although not always correct on every bone). However, for some reason, whilst the rebind works flawlessly in Maya, this makes the mesh explode when running Mecanim clips in Unity, so I have to be able to edit the pivots on the existing set of skinned bones if possible.

Cheers!

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  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    To change local rotation axis hit f8, then click the question mark and make sure local rotation axis is checked and then rotate.
  • stabbington
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    stabbington polycounter lvl 10
    Thanks for the reply!

    Sadly, if you do this, then go back to select object mode, select a bone, activate the move tool and check the local move axis, the move tool axes remain as they were and it's this local axis that gets exported... if you look at the image here you can see the local rotation axes corrected using your method (the thin coloured lines aligned to the bones) but the move gizmo shows the 'actual' local axes, which are what gets exported out in the fbx files.

    LRA_issue.jpg

    So freaking confused...!
  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
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