Noob Biped Question (Max8)

Technobabel

I don't have much experience with biped, and I ran into a problem when trying to pose my biped skeleton to match the mesh. My character's legs are bowed outward quite a bit (cartoony type character), yet the y axis rotation is locked out on the lower legs so I can't get them in the proper position. I know it's locked out because normal human legs can't bend that way, but is there a way to unlock it so I can get it to work with my needs?

animatr

i think you should just be able to rotate X on the lower leg to move the knee out.

Technobabel

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think that's the best course of action. That changes the direction the lower leg is facing, so when I went to animate it I wouldn't be able to rotate it front to back, only at something like a 45 degree angle (if that makes any sense), because all the other rotation angles are locked.

jec1183

Change your rotation selection type to local. That usually fixes any of those problems. Also make sure you are not in biped mode.

Rob Galanakis

I think Techno is saying that, he needs the hinge joint at the knee to behave like a ball and socket joint, at least temporarily, so he can 'bowleg' the foot outwards (to create quite a crook in the knee), then bend it according to a certain rotation axis (do you want to rotate it straight horizontal, or is the rotation axis going to be crooked as well?).

I don't have experience with MaxScript, but AFAIK there is no way to do this in biped. You can try to work-around this, and have the legs go vertical and skin them to the legs as normal. If the knee, and ankle (and toes) only bend in one axis (the global x axis), the actual mesh legs, though far away from the bone and joint, will deform properly. This will cause problems on the ankles with any more complex rotations, however.
You can create a set of bones for the feet, position them inside the mesh correctly, and position/rotation constrain them to the biped foot bones, with the needed offset. Then, skin your legs to the biped thigh and knee, and the maxbones foot and toe. I don't know if this would work, but its worth a try. A screenshot would help figure out your problem, as well.

Technobabel

What the professor was saying is right. The rotation angle I need is locked out in local mode as well.
Although I did find somewhat of a solution. I downloaded a tool called Rigging Army Knife, which can take a biped and convert it to max bones (while still looking exactly like a biped). So after doing that I can rotate the bones the way I need to. Only downside is that it gets rid of the IK and controllers that the biped has, but luckily for my purposes I don't need them.

It does surprise me though that it never crossed the developers minds that someday someone may want to bend legs that way for whatever reason.

Thanks for taking the time out to try and help!