Mechanical Arm Rigging Problems

Skygrasper

Hey,

Im currently rigging a mobile suit model that I created, I started with the arms and have run into a few issues (I use 3DS Max 2009). As shown in the images below (hosted on ImageShack), I want the shoulder armor to rotate with the arm on the Y axis, but not on the X axis. I also want the upper arm top bone to just rotate on the X axis, and not bend on the Y axis. Im using a HI IK solver on this arm, starting at the upper arm top bone, and ending at the wrist.
I dont know a whole lot about rigging outside of some of the basic IK's. If this can be solved with some sort of Constraint, any tips on how to go about setting that up would be great.

Bone System:


Shoulder Armor Rotation Problem:


Correct Shoulder Armor Rotation:


Upper Arm Problem:


Thanks in advance.

Rick Stirling

Since you've added IK it becomes a wee bit harder to extract the bone rotations, so you'll firstly want to set up some Expose Transform helper objects. They will query your bone rotations and provide an interface for them.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vxWQPFUbzQ[/ame]


So, without seeing how your rig is set up I'll have to make some assumptions. Usually I'd use the script controllers to solve this, but you'll get away with wire parameters.

The shoulder pad is going to be linked/skinned to a bone that is the parent of the clavicle, not the arm itself. You want this pad to lift up when the arm lifts in the Y?

Guessing, since max isn't open...

Set up an Expose transform helper and expose the upper arm with it.

Select the pad bone, right click and choose Wire Parameters, and link the Transform, Rotation, Y Rotation to the Local Euler Y of the expose transform helper.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIDD45gAaq0[/ame]

LEViATHAN

Select bone, hierarchy tab, link info, restrict axes (under "locks" of course)?

Or won't that work with IK?