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Oogst
03-25-2003, 05:05 PM
(I have already asked this question on several other places, including the 3dsmax forum on cg-talk, but no one could solve my problem and now an experienced CG-talk-user said I should try it here, though this is a MAX specific problem).

I want to do the following, which I was perfectly able to years ago in old 3dsMAX-versions (r2.5):

I have a bone-chain like this one:
http://home.hccnet.nl/w.vdongen/BoneChain.jpg

I now want to have two controllers: one on bone06 and one on bone13. Now when I move any of these two controllers, the entire chain should try to follow both controllers. When the controllers get to far away from each other, the bone chain tries to maintain an avarage, so that both controllers are satisfied as much as possible.

When I try to do this in MAX 5, this does nog fully work. The first controller added to the scene is always the leader. If I add a controller from bone01 to bone06, and then add another controller from bone01 to bone13, the problem occurs. The first controller influences bone01 to bone06, as should be. But the second controller only controls bone10 tot bone13, not as should be.

In MAX 2.5 I did not do this with controllers at all: in the hierachy-panel I could bind each bone to a follow object and give each bone a binding weigth to make the strength of this binding clear. This does not work properly anymore, in MAX 5 it gives the same problem as the controllers.

How do I solve this problem?
michaelcomet
03-25-2003, 05:48 PM
For starters you could easily create 2 objects, and create and expression or doing a 3rd object that is point constrained with a blended 50-50 weight between those two objects.

At that point you could apply an IK solution from 01-03 that would have the ik effector parented to the middle constrained object.

The problem you are going to have with this solution tho is that you will end up with a cycle. Because the bone chains 13 and 6 are a child of 3... if they try to control 3, but then 3 controls them, you end up in a cycle loop which max won't allow.

So you may have to break your hierarchy up some other way... at least unlinking the sub chains...
Oogst
03-26-2003, 11:03 AM
I have exactly the scene that I describe here (though in the form of a human) as a scene for MAX 2.5. It works. I can even open it in MAX 5 and use it, and still it works. The only problem is that I cannot create it in MAX 5.

So I think it should not be needed to split the bone chain to achieve anything like what I want.
michaelcomet
03-26-2003, 12:33 PM
The issue is tho Max 2.5 had a totally different and non-nornal old "IK" mode. In fact it wasn't really even a working IK solution although it kinda worked. I'm not sure if r5 while able to load that old type of rig, allows the creation of the OLD ik methods. If not you are probably out of luck.

Actually if you make your joints and don't assign a regular IK chain to it, but go STRAIGHT to the Hierarchy panel, IK section, you might still be able to set the bind stuff up the way you want etc...
Oogst
03-26-2003, 02:00 PM
I am in fact able to open the MAX 2.5-file properly in MAX 5 and use it as I was able to in MAX 2.5 long ago.

I have tried not creating a controller and directly binding, but that did not solve it: it gave exactly the same problem.

What I find really funny is that you say the bones in MAX 2.5 where really bad, but the thing I want to do is something I have used a lot of times and I do not see how MAX 5 has an alternative for it, so I think this is a pro for the bones in MAX 2.5. Or is there a good alternative for this in MAX 5?
michaelcomet
03-27-2003, 01:59 AM
Well the IK setup for "normal" ik type stuff was poor compared to r5.

Trying to get a chain to stay somewhere based on it';s children is definitely a "cycle/Loop issue". I'm amazed it works in r2.5/5.0 with the old method at all.

I'd be very curious to see if anyone at http://support.discreet.com/ has an answer for you.... you may want to try there, as the actual discreet people adn such check that I think....
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