Spherical Constraints

[Florian80]

I made a simple book model and now I want to use it in an animation. I created 2 bones for both sides so I can open and close it. But now the book bones need to be constrained to rotate only in one direction - I need to prevent the bones to rotate up or down. How do I have to do that? For characters I uses the hash 2001 skeleton, where these constraints are already set. How can I create such constraints for my own? I haven't found a tutorial for that in the manual.

 

Buch.mdl

[Darkwing]

I've been fiddling with constraint on bones as well, and from what I can figure, it would go something like this. Create a new pose for your model. In the action window, click on one of the bones, in the properties, there is something about role in a particular axis, try fiddling with that. Sorry I can't be of more help

[robcat2075]

First you can rotate any bone on one axis by using the rotate manipulator. The R key turns it on and off. That's how you should rotate all bones all the time, whether you're rigging or animating; never drag a bone around by the tip.

 

But for aconstraint I recommend the Euler limits constraint. As Darkwing said, in the model window >New>Pose>On/Off to make a new Pose for your model. Select the bone and >New Constraint>Euler limits.

 

In the properties for the constraint you can set min and max rotation limits for each axis. if you only want a bone to move on the X axis you'd set Y and Z to min 0 and max 0

[HomeSlice]

Another thing you can do is use the Limit Manipulators property.

Open a Model window for your book model.

Switch to Bones Mode.

Select one of the bones in the book.

Look in the Properties Panel for something called Manipulator Options.

Expand the disclosure triangle beside it for more options.

Leave "Manipulation" set to "Standard".

Set "Limit Manipulators" to ON.

Another disclosure triangle will appear.

Click on it for more options.

Set all the Translate, Rotate and Scale options to OFF *except* the Rotate axis on which you want the bone to follow.

 

Bring your book model into a chor or action and grab the tip of the bone and move it around. It will only rotate on the axis you specified.