3DS Max Bone axis change

kream

Hey all,

Quick (I hope) question. Is there a way to change the pivot of a bone in max to have it look down the 4 axis at the next bone in the chain? I seem to be drawing a blank here, I try adjusting the pivot, but the bone follows. This is fairly easy to accomplish while building a rig in maya, but seem to be stumped here in Max. I want to adjust the bone pivots so they're all looking down the Y, with z facing toward the front of the character. 

I've tried breaking the connections of the bones, so theyre all floating, but the pivot change still rotates the bone itself, and not just the pivot. Thanks again!

Dihemi

If it's for use inside 3ds Max only, you can use any shape/object as a bone as a workaround. Just create a box or similar, place it in the desired direction, adjust the pivot and add it as a "bone" in the skin modifier. The "bone" should keep its shape regardless of its pivot.

Can't vouch for exporting/importing into any game engine though. So caution is advised if you want to use this workaround outside 3ds Max.

Alternatively, any reason you can't just ignore the shape of the bone? The shape is mostly for visuals: you can place/link any proxy over it if you want a visual feedback of its intended direction.

Hope this helps.

kream

Hey, thanks for the response. The rig would be exported to Unity, and visually the bones don't matter, like you said. It's mainly for ease of building. and having it connected properly. The rig is currently built, so I was mainly looking to "adjust" where I needed to. It sounds like to accomplish this, I would have to disconnect everything, adjust pivots, ignoring the visual direction of the bones, then link together. 

poopipe

Make a rig with unity friendly orientations (you can make it out of point helpers or geometry etc), constrain it to the animation rig and skin your meshes to that for export instead.

Much easier