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Andrei2k
06-17-2003, 03:55 AM
I was wondering what the Maya Docs mean when they give example scenarios of using parent constraints...Example:

Scenario
A basketball player character passes a ball to his teammate.
1 Select the first player’s hands, and then the basketball.
2 Parent constrain the ball to the hands, making sure that Maintain
Offset is on and the weight is set to 1 in the constraint options.
and so on...

When they say "Parent constrain the ball to the hands" do they mean, all of the bones in the hand?....the hand geometry or what? and what if the whole character is one mesh? then how do you just select the hand if they do in fact mean the mesh and not bones... Can someone please clear this up a bit so I can actually use this cool new feature? Thank You.

Andrei
Matt Leishman
06-17-2003, 07:02 AM
i haven't played with this tool yet as i havent used maya 5 yet, but i can only assume that the thinking for this tool is just the same as the thinking for any of the other pre-existing constraints.

When I perform a similar constraining function with the other tools, i usually parent a null object to the wrist joint, and use that null object as my constraint master. You could probably do the same here with the "parent constraint tool". parent a null to the wrist joint, and then "parent constrain" the ball to the null object.

Like i said, i haven't used the new "parent constrain" tool yet, but i don't see why this shouldn't work for ya.
Doogie
06-17-2003, 07:45 AM
Parent constraint is a new constraint in Maya5. It's like a point and orient constraint together and can easily be keyed on and off.

For the basketball senario youd have it attached to one players hand and to another players hand when he passes. So in other words... they're talking about attaching it to either the hand's control object or any one bone in the hand.

BTW I think the "maintain offset" is new too.... if so, its one of my favorite features :D
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