Rigging in Maya, adding joints to a skeleton

Tectonic

I want to add extra joints to the arms of my skeleton so I can make a distributed twist. When I use the Insert Joint Tool the arm below that inserted joint moves. I'm not sure what is causing this, in videos I've watched when other people add a joint their skeleton stays in place. Let me know what you think, or what information would help figure out what's going wrong. I'm using maya 2014.

CharacterCarl

Do you have scaling applied to one of the joints? That is what creates the jumping for me, so make sure all your joint scale values are set to 1.

antweiler

I would recommend not to parent the hand below the twist joint, and add the twist joint as a duplicate of the elbow in the hierarchy beside the hand
It will be much easier to setup

Tectonic

DerRazputin wrote: »

Do you have scaling applied to one of the joints? That is what creates the jumping for me, so make sure all your joint scale values are set to 1.

I checked and all the bones are at the right scale, maybe me having scale locked though is affecting it in some way. Thanks for the tip though, I'll remember to check that in the future if I have issues. It's good to know what the checklist is as far as things that can go wrong.

antweiler wrote: »

I would recommend not to parent the hand below the twist joint, and add the twist joint as a duplicate of the elbow in the hierarchy beside the hand
It will be much easier to setup

Ok, cool. I think that will make it so I don't need to figure out what's going wrong with the Insert Joint Tool. I'll duplicate the arm and make a parallel one with the extra joints. How would that work as far as skinning? should I skin the arm mesh to the new arm bones, but keep the hand skinned to the original arm? This is my first time rigging in Maya so I'm still wrapping my brain around the different tools and what their capabilities are.

antweiler

no, just use one arm. The hierarchy doesnt matter for skinning. Just add the lower weights, you would normally put to the elbow, to the twist joint. You can also add more twist joints easily, if needed.

Tectonic

Alright everything is looking good on my arms, now its the spine giving me trouble haha. Anyone know why when I create a Spline IK the bones of the back don't follow it? nothing jumps or changes rotations when I create the IK. I don't have anything locked on the bones. I can select the CVs and move the curve, but the bones stay stationary.