UNSPOKEN CAVEATS?

[UNGLAUBLICHUSA]

I have been trying to rig my Armoured Killer Juggernaut model for a few weeks (during my evening free time) and have run into some stumbling blocks that have me stymied. I am wondering if in my reading of the manual, other AM books and the Forum I have missed some critical info.

 

True False?: You must set orient like constrainst to bones PRIOR to assigning CP's?

(I find if I don't the splines become a mess of spaghetti, parts go twisting away)

 

True false? When you set orient like constraints the "fan" bone should re-position itself in the direction of the bone it has been oriented like.

(In the print tutorials I always see that fan bone looking pretty 'poining away' from the mid point of the two bones it has constraints split between)

 

If the second scenario happens do you manually move the bone to the 'mid-way' position like in the pictures from the tutorials?

 

Any help appreciated...I wanna enter the sci-fi still contest...

[Reikster]

That's a false on the first one.

 

What happenned is that your roll handle was probably 180 degrees out from what the orient like constraint did.

 

Simply open up the model in a model window (not relationship/action) and go into bones mode and put the bone that got twisted to more like the orient like position.

 

I haven't figured out what method AM uses to place its roll handles, but it seems like I can place a chain of bones and some will end up with roll facing out, some with roll facing in. I'm sure it's just a subtlety in how I drew the bone, though.

 

For my limited experience with rigging (mostly this past weekend), I always go back and check/set the bone orientation before I move on to constaining them in a pose.

 

My experience with fan bones is too limited to give a good answer to the second question.

 

eric

[Bendytoons]

Eric is probably right about the z rotation in the first instance.

 

In the second case, if you apply an "orient like" constraint the constrained bone will immediately take on the orientation of the picked bone UNLESS you use compensate mode, which leaves the bone in its current position by applying a permanent offset to the constraint equal to the offset at the frame you are applying on. You use compensate mode by clicking the compensate mode button befor picking the target of the constraint.

 

However, the fan bones in the pictures should be pointing midway between bones because they have two "orient like" constraints, one for each bone, which both left at the default 100 percent will affect the constrained bone equally.

 

Ben

[heyvern]

Fan bone position after assigning orient like constraints depends on if you clicked compensate prior to assigning the bone to be oriented to.

 

So... if you assign orient like and DON'T use compensate... the bone will "jump" to the new orientation.

 

If you do click compensate... the bone will appear NOT to move when the constraint is applied... that is because it adds the position it is in currently to the off-set of the constraint.

 

I almost always use compensate. It gives me a feeling of control when applying constraints. That is just me of course... and it may not always be correct or necessary.

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

[cfree68f]

It also depends on how you laid out the fan bones. If the intitial orientation was inline with the rotating bone.. it shouldnt go spaghetti. If not.. then it will.. You'll need to apply some offset to the orientation. This is what I did with my hero model. Just apply the orientation constraint. then set the amount.. ( percentage) that will fix some of the spaghetti. Then offset the bone back to its initial orientation. Compensate mode will do this as well. For some reason I liked doing it manually.

 

C