Attaching a mouthpiece to upper jaw using constraint

[flashawd]

Hi - I am working on another dental animation and need to have a metal piece move in and attach to the upper jaw bone - then have the mouth close and it stay in the exact place I put it in the chor. I tried using Translate to and Orient Like and also Kinematic... it moves a little bit when I close the mouth because the jaw bone is moving. I tried setting some different interpolation methods - but didn't seem to help. Is it possible to lock it in place like I am trying to do to remain in the exact place I constrain it? Thanks for any help. -Eric

 

P.S. - Happy almost Thanksgiving!

[flashawd]

Alright, I figured out the problem - I had created a pose slider to "open/close" the mouth, and for this particular animation because there was an overbite needed I had to raise the upper jaw for the mouth open pose slider - I realized I had moved the CPs instead of the bone - and that was causing the move movement. I deleted and recreated the open/close pose slider and moved the bone instead - and works perfect now. Thanks.

[Caroline]

Edit: I thought about it too long - glad you fixed it! Just for posterity, this is what I wrote (totally useless in your case )

 

If it is staying in the exact same place, why do you need a constraint?

 

Can't you just bring it in, then not have any keyframes on it after it is positioned, and then it won't move.

 

If you need it to move again later, you could do a Hold interpolation on that keyframe where you want it to stay put.

 

Or, when you say the exact same place in the chor, do you mean exact same place relative to the mouth? If the mouth is moving you would not be able to constrain it to the mouth, because that moves too. Would constraining it to a null work? Then animate the null.

[flashawd]

Hi Caroline - Happy Thanksgiving Actually, I didn't really write that clear enough - by staying in the same place I meant the metal mouth brace needed to stay in the exact same place on the teeth as the mouth moves around. I actually just moved it into place and did a Translate and Orient constaint to the upper jaw bone, which is a sub-bone of the main mouth bone.... am I making any sense to anyone buy myself, that wouldn't be something new. Thanks for taking the time - Eric