Max 7 animation issue

LEViATHAN

To illustrate:



This only happens in this particular scene, when I try to do the same in a new scene with a box primitive, it's fine. It has a rather complex hierarchy using basic links and link constrains to link the revolver to the wrist, but other, similar, projects don't have this problem. Ideas?

MoP

Looks like a rotation axis order issue?

If you look at your screenshots, the rotate values at the bottom have Y at -90 and Z at 0 in the "zero pose", then you have Y at 0 and Z at -25.

That means somehow to reach that position your Y axis has gone through +90 degree rotation. It doesn't look like it visually, so I'd guess you're going through some weird rotation space to get there.

What type are your rotation controllers? Euler, quaternion, Gimbal?

LEViATHAN

I have no idea actually, I'm not an expert, I just rotate and move stuff until it looks snazzy enough.

Piflik

Definately a Rotation Order/Gimbal Lock Problem. Have a look here...(and here)

Mark Dygert

I'm not sure its gimbal lock... but it could be.

3 things to try.
1) Rotate it with the gizmo set to local.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1306131/3dsmaxLocalWorldPivot.jpg
Sometimes when you rotate with it set to world or view you get something that looks a lot like gimbal lock.

2) Turn off angle snap and rotate it slightly less or more than what it is currently.

3) convert it to quaternion, if its gimbal it would nuke it.

LEViATHAN

Meh, did a hacky workaround instead, created a dummy and linked the wrist to that. It works.