Can I Set Constraints in a Model?

[Dale_The_Bold]

I'm getting good at modeling. Well, decent, anyway. Now I'm trying to set up rigs. I'm very young and naive in the way of animating my models. (These are my babies, and I'm trying to teach them to walk!). But I'm trying to get a grasp on it so I can become like many of the wizards who reside here.

 

So, I'm learning to rig and I'm getting the concept. I think I can rig a character pretty well from all of the learning resources I've found here. But the part that is confusing me is the constraints. I "get" the concept and how to do it, but I have to set up an action in order to get that option. Is there a way to set up a constraint such that every time I import that character, his/her usual constraints are already in place, or will I have to tweak that on every new scene?

[johnl3d]

setting them in a pose allows you to turn them on and off as needed that is the usual way they are applied

[Dale_The_Bold]

So I can give each character a "starting pose" and then start each scene with that and animate from there?

[johnl3d]

Not quite...read the manuall concerning setting up a pose and constraints

[KenH]

Constraints are only done in either actions/poses or chors. You can't do them in the model window. So you can set up all your constraints in a pose and turn it ON in the models user properties and any chor/action/pose the model appears in....it will have those constraints. Likewise you can move bones around in a pose and pose the model how you want it to start when you animate.

[zandoriastudios]

what you are looking to do is called a Relationship. They can be on/off or percentage. Relationships are a part of the model, and are always there from project to project.

a relationships on/off or % property can be setup as a default--this is how you setup your rig. It will be an on/off pose that is set to be "on" by default.

when you choose new>relationship>on/off, you will open a relationship window. It is similar to an action window, but everything that you do here should only be something that you want to be enforced when the pose is set to "on".

usually you will use a number of separate relationships to control your "rig" (you may want different constraints enforced in different circumstances...)