Joint Local Rotation Axes

[]-UnderTOW-[]

Sorry, it's called Joint Orient, not Joint Offset. Select a Joint, open the Attribute Editor, and under the Joint section there is an Attribute called Joint Orient.

[zachlantow]

You might also have to switch to select by component type and then change component type to local rotation axes and select by heiarchy. Remember that the local rotation axes of the joints dosent apply to scaling, so if you want to switch the scaling axes to the same as the local rotation axes (after you've changed them to what you want them to be) just use this script:

"joint -e -zso -ch;"

[Ahmattu]

thanks guys for the help, but it seems like we can do this in different ways:

1 - if I use the Orient values in the "attribute editor" it changes the orientation of the children as well and this is gonna change the shape of the hierarchy!! (undesirable).

so please Tim, tell me did I miss use it?

2 - if I use (Skeleton > Orient Joint) well this is something that I find it useful, because you have the option not to affect the children, and it works fine since you have also the secondary axis so you can direct the "LRA = Local Rotation Axis" anywhere you want.

3 - if I went to the component mode and rotate the LRA manually, it helps but I couldn't trace the rotation value, so I used the "Snap Rotate" in the rotation tool and I set the step size to "90", so I can play around with the LRA with precision (I don't know if its a good Idea!).

so you expert guys tell me which is the right "Tested" way to do that, I see 2,3 work fine should I go ahead with whatever works for me?? (lets say I want to do and understand)

[zachlantow]

If it works then it works. Just make sure you check movement and everything that you are planning to do with the animation. You can always just unparent the heiarchy then change the LRA of the joints then parent them back again, which should work unless you have a crazy parenting system in place already. If possible that is the route I'd go, because you do not know if the other ways will mess you up later and cause a big headache. Good luck man!

[]-UnderTOW-[]

So it's already parented? Then if it's unbound to a skin, i'd go with zachlantow's suggestion and unparent the childeren, repositioning the joint, than parent them back up.
When you rotate the local rotation axis, it not only changes the joint orientation, but the rotate axis aswell (to compensate the rotation). The problem is that it will allign the rotation orientation, but not the move or scale orientation. This can be a bit annoying if you need those axes to be oriented as well.
BTW, when you rotate a joint, you can acctually freeze the rotation (Modify>Freeze Transform Option Box), and it will zero off the rotation attr and put the rotation in the Joint Orient attr.

[MasonDoran]

here is an alternative taken straight from the script editor:

select the axis and paste this in the command line...0 0 0 are x y z rotation values

rotate -r -ws 0 -90 0 ; (rotate in world space -90° y)

rotate -r -os 23 0 45 ; (rotate in object space 23° x 0°y 45° z)

[Ahmattu]

thanks guys for the valuable information.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.