I'm not sure I understand the question - do you need general information about how rigs are laid out, or specific data about orientation of bones?
When rigging a character generally the bone orientation will be X along the bone, and then you'd keep Y or Z common along the limbs. As I recall Biped in 3ds max has the Z axis as the hinge on elbow and knee joints, and Z on the spine is the forwards and backwards bending.
2) If you're in 3dsmax make sure your transform spinner is set to local when working or positioning. It might also be helpful to turn on angle snap with it set to 5-10 degrees. It often takes the headache out of dealing with decimals when wiring. It also makes things easy to get back into place. But don't be rigid about it otherwise things could end up off for the sake of mathematical precision.
3) Animation > Bone Tools > Edit Bone Mode, to help align your bones. In general don't scale bones. Don't reset xform on bones. DO reset transform/scale before skinning or wiring.
4) Bones are nothing more then pivot points so you can adjust a bones pivot in the hierarchy tab just like any other object. The only real differences between a bone and a box is that bones have fins which helps guide envelopes and they default to non-rendering.
Yeah, you're going to have to be more specific about which software package you are using. Each major 3D suite handles animations and rigging differently.
These days, a lot of in-game models have high enough poly counts that weight-painting becomes an effecitve method for setting up bone riggings. It is even possible in some 3d packages and even engines to have bone rotations work in conjunction with shape keys.
Alright to answer everyones questions I am using Maya 8.5 and I was looking for general information on rigging. The situation is that I was trying to rig a character but when I try to move it the whole structure collapses upon itself so I figured I needed to learn from the ground up. Thanks for all the help as well.
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When rigging a character generally the bone orientation will be X along the bone, and then you'd keep Y or Z common along the limbs. As I recall Biped in 3ds max has the Z axis as the hinge on elbow and knee joints, and Z on the spine is the forwards and backwards bending.
2) If you're in 3dsmax make sure your transform spinner is set to local when working or positioning. It might also be helpful to turn on angle snap with it set to 5-10 degrees. It often takes the headache out of dealing with decimals when wiring. It also makes things easy to get back into place. But don't be rigid about it otherwise things could end up off for the sake of mathematical precision.
3) Animation > Bone Tools > Edit Bone Mode, to help align your bones. In general don't scale bones. Don't reset xform on bones. DO reset transform/scale before skinning or wiring.
4) Bones are nothing more then pivot points so you can adjust a bones pivot in the hierarchy tab just like any other object. The only real differences between a bone and a box is that bones have fins which helps guide envelopes and they default to non-rendering.
These days, a lot of in-game models have high enough poly counts that weight-painting becomes an effecitve method for setting up bone riggings. It is even possible in some 3d packages and even engines to have bone rotations work in conjunction with shape keys.