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Datadog
05-19-2005, 02:36 AM
Hi,

I'm currently trying to make the transistion from learning Maya to learning Max, and I've gone through all the tutorials and done quite a lot already. But there's two things I've gotten really good at in Maya that I just can't seem to imitate in Max. Can anyone help me?

1. Joint orientation. I want my character's elbow to be able to bend at a 45 degree angle when I rotate the dummy helper. Unfortunately, I can't change the rotation axis on the dummy, or even rotate the joint orientation on the skeleton for some reason. The rotation always stay consistent on a 90 degree basis. How would I fix this in Max?

2. Set-driven keys. Maybe I missed something in the tutorials, but it would be really handy to have pre-set controllers when it comes to rotating fingers. I know how to set attributes, but they only let me rotate things based on rads.

Thanks for any help you can give me.
shibumenon
05-19-2005, 03:56 AM
Hi Data ...

#1..... I 'm not able to make out from your post where exactly r u getting stuck. Are u talking about angle snap, or are you saying that the x axis of any bone always stays along the length of the bone, even if you try editing its pivot?
If its the first one, hunt for angle snap on your toolbar......
If it is the second one, u could try inserting a point helper into the heirarchy.
If its none of these, then a screenshot would make things clearer.

#2 .... while wiring your attribute slider to the bone rotation, in the wire parameter dialog, use the expression degToRad(x)
.......replace x by your spinner or slider value.

-shibu
Datadog
05-20-2005, 03:50 AM
Okay... I sort of figured out two possible answers...

1. My dummy rotation was easily fixed by simply switching to "Local." The elbow works fine now.

2. Max doesn't seem to let me set pre-posed fingers, so I guess I have to do it the MaxScript way. But now I've got new problems.

When I try to put an orient constraint on a dummy or helper, the values aren't zeroing out, so the bones keep popping into awkward positions. I've tried parenting the dummy to a zeroed-out point helper, but it doesn't work. Neither does ALT-right-clicking and selecting from the "Rotation to Zero" quad.
SILMAETH
06-01-2005, 11:30 PM
hi,
the closest thing to the MAYA's set driven key system in Max is the reaction manager in 3dsmax7.
see help for more info
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