IK groups in Maya

zzz7net

I use mostly groups (with IK-handles inside it) rather than curve controls.
When I group some of the IK handles (Ctrl+G) the local rotation axes of this group is not oriented to the local rotation axes of the joint where the pivot is but to the global axes.

Solutions:
1) Orient local axes of the group manually not the answer because you can do it exactly.
2) The way you orient LRA of the curve controls to LRA of the joints
(Parent -> Zero Transformations -> Unparent) doesn't work.
3) Work only with characters joints of those is always oriented to the global axes is absurd because there are a huge amount of characters which don't match this criteria.

Is there any way to solve this problem?
To make it more clear what I mean there is a video of cat rig tutorial but the cat legs are initially straight to global axes (actually to YZ global plane) and in my character - legs (especially foots) are not!

MiAlx

So you want the group to have the same orientation as the grouped object? Sorry I am on my phone right now, so I cannot check properly, but if you go into the group settings ( edit > group and click on the □ next to it ) you should be able to set the group's pivot to 'origin'. Maybe that does what you want?

zzz7net

MiAlx unfortunately it's not (

1) select all ikHandles you have in your kinematic chain
2) Edit -> group □ (set 'origin pivot' in options)
3) now the pivot of your group is in 0,0,0 world
4) hit 'Insert' and snap your pivot ('V') to one of the joints in the chain with Move Tool ('W')
5) almost done
6) and the last I want the local rotation axes (LRA) of my IK group would be the same as LRA of the joint to wich I've snapped the pivot

But anyway thanks for the answer!

Redsett

Create a empty group, than Ctl+G that group. Parent the upper group under the joint you want to copy the rotations/translations from. After parented zero out the trans/rotate channels on the group. The group will now be in the same place and rotations as the joint. Now parent all those IK handles under the inner group.

Edit: Forgot to say unparent the upper group after zeroing out trans/rotates.

zzz7net

hmm.. it can be the right way
I'll try this and will write tomorrow the result

zzz7net

Redsett wrote: »

Create a empty group, than Ctl+G that group. Parent the upper group under the joint you want to copy the rotations/translations from. After parented zero out the trans/rotate channels on the group. The group will now be in the same place and rotations as the joint. Now parent all those IK handles under the inner group.

Edit: Forgot to say unparent the upper group after zeroing out trans/rotates.

Yes it's working! yeeeee!
Thanks Redsett