More maya rigging grief

Hito

couple of things, some of which are my own damn fault probably.

some joints have no translate channels? when I select the joint it only shows the rotate channels in the channel window? thing is some of the joints in the rig do have translate channel (hip/thigh joint), some do not (clavicle)

joint rotation axis... I don't even know what to call this thing any more. I found out how to do this a few weeks ago on google, but now I can't fuckin remember; can't even remember what I googled to get the results I need. Pathetic ain't it? One thing I found was running the Orient joint command in the skeleton menu, but that didn't do anything. the rotation axis is still aligned to world, as opposed to one axis pointed in the direction the joint is pointed.:poly127:

any pointers?

MagicSugar

Hito wrote: »

some joints have no translate channels? when I select the joint it only shows the rotate channels in the channel window? thing is some of the joints in the rig do have translate channel (hip/thigh joint), some do not (clavicle)

Are you using somebody else's rig? Missing channels are probably hidden and locked.

Re: rotational axis, have you checked attributes? Or it could have been set as an expression/set driven.

MoP

You'll need to use the Channel Editor to show/unlock any attributes that don't show up in that list. It's one of the items in the menus at the top of the Channel Box/Layer Editor sidebar.

As for rotation, that's actually a "tool" setting - double-click the Rotate tool on the left (or bring up the Tool Settings window some other way) and make sure that it's set to Object instead of World.

Hito

Already tried "Show All" in the channels box, the clavicles only have Rotate and Radius channels.

the rotation thing is like rotating the pivot in max with "affect pivot only" mode on. but for the joint instead of a mesh. I had figured out how to do it before, but forgot and forgot how to find it again.

its not a pressing issue at any rate, just really frustrating to find it then forget and be unable to find the information again.

DerDude

at least its not handy to key the translatechannel for animation, use icon-representation to contrain them to be flexible when you change things. Anyway have you build a rig oder just joints for that model? Make some screenshots.

ps: is you already bind your model to your joints you can´t reorient joints.

ivars

Use the selection masks to access "local rotation axis" (Rightclick on the one in component mode that looks like a "?", just click and hold and you should find it) Then you can select and rotate them manually.

Orient joints only works on joints with zero rotations, so if you've rotated anything it won't work. Could also be a child joint that has rotations since "Orient Child joints" is checked by default in the optionbox.

Like MoP said, use the "channel control" editor to bring back any hidden or locked attributes.

Hito

Ooooh okay... the "Show All" doesn't really show all... Got that straightened out now.

Thanks for letting me know the little caveat re orient joints. Both the clavicles had slight rotation out of 0,0,0; thats why the handles weren't showing up in component mode.

Thanks again!