Auto clavicle arm rig setup?

acitone

What's up y'all I'm having some issues with rigging up an auto clavicle rotation setup for the arm. I want the clavicle to rotate upwards automatically when the arm goes up.

I tried using the Expose Transform (ExposeTm) helper to extract the rotation from the upper arm and drive the clavicle rotation with it, but since the upper arm is linked to the clavicle that causes a dependency error. Position constraining the upper arm to the clavicle instead of linking it doesn't work either - the animation pops uncontrollably in this case. Some ideas please?

Redsett

You're doing this in 3ds max?

In Maya, I find the best way is to use a cone/pose reader to get the position of the shoulder and use the dot product of the reader with set drive keys to control the rotation of the clavicle.

I would assume it wouldn't be too hard to make a cone reader in Max.

Here's a helpful tread:
http://tech-artists.org/forum/showthread.php?3995-Cone-readers-pose-based-deformers-to-drive-certain-deformations


EDIT:

Here is one that someone seems to be giving away. You could dissect it.
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/stretchy-ik-fk-arm-rigger-with-auto-clavicle

acitone

Yep I'm in 3ds Max. I don't know much about scripts, but I'll take a look thanks. The Maya stuff will also come in handy someday.

Mark Dygert

You kind of have the right idea, but you're missing a few tiny bits.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf71AlH-9TA"]rigging tutorial part 3: auto clavicle & switch FK IK - YouTube[/ame]
He covers a good auto-clav method at 2:30-5min, but it might be good to see it from the beginning to make sure the rig is set up the same.

acitone

Thanks Mark. I watched it just now and that solution is pretty excellent. Someone suggested in an old thread creating a lookat to the hand control but that causes an issue if the hand is higher than the arm itself. This solution is actually a better fix.