PDA

View Full Version : need advice on complicated arm setup (maya)

pearblossom
10-02-2009, 02:52 PM
I have five joint chains. One chain is constrained to FK/IK chains, and then another chain is constrained to that chain AND a fifth chain with spline IK. Most of these constraints are done with blendColors nodes, and the Final chain has both its rotation and translation constrained since it has to move into a certain position.

So my chains are:FK, IK, FKIK Blend chain, Spline, and Final. Thing is, when I hide the topmost joint of the FKIKBlend chain, a point constraint that hooks up a null on the IK chain with a null on the FKIK Blend chain (for scaling purposes) stops working on the Final chain. I can hide all the other joints on FKIK Blend chain (including the point constraint null) and it works fine, but hiding the topmost joint makes it break. Why???

As an aside, there are different numbers of joints on the chains.. the FK and IK chains have only shoulder/elbow/wrist, but the final chain has extra joints added in for deformation. Could this be part of the problem? In any case I don't understand why hiding it would make a difference..

Thanks in advance!
pearblossom
10-02-2009, 03:18 PM
ack.. never mind.. it was one of those bugs caused by not connecting individual rotate channels, so rotate vals. weren't reading correctly.. stupid maya. ;P thanks anyways!
exhibitx
10-10-2009, 05:41 AM
i don't know if you know that there is a one joint chain ik/fk setup that comes with maya that you can tweak and get the same result as a 3 chain setup without all the extra joints.
look under Animate-> IK/FK Keys.
pearblossom
10-16-2009, 08:34 PM
yeah, i think i can probably get rid of at least one and maybe two of the joint chains this way.. i will look into it for my next character. cheers!
CGTalk Moderation
10-16-2009, 08:34 PM
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.