Changing Joint Orientation without breaking the rig

#1

Hi guys,

I’ve got an issue with a rig at the moment that I just can’t get my head around, hoping you guys can help me out :slight_smile:

I have a male and female character rig, both have got the same setup i.e. skeleton, skinned mesh and controls. However, there is a problem with the rig that I am trying to sort out and as I didn’t originally make this rig it’s quite hard to know what to do.

With the current orientation of the joints, X is pointing in the wrong direction, see image below:
https://app.box.com/s/k5lhsdxtsgizs44bio8c

So what i’m thinking of doing at the moment is:
1 - Save the weight of the skin
2 - Detach the skin
3 - Select each joint individually and select the joint constraint
4 - Delete the joint constraint
5 - Change the orientation
6 - Recreate the constraint as before
7 - Reload the weights that I saved.

The only problem I have with this procedure so far, is #4 and #6. I can’t find what the joint is constraint to and I therefore won’t be able to recreate the constraint later.

I’ve asked a previous rigger who worked on this rig (but he wasn’t the first or the last person to alter it) and he said there is a puppet skeleton which controls the joints but I can’t find that puppet skeleton. If I could, I could probably recreate the constraint.

I really appreciate the time you give for any help you can offer me. :slight_smile:

Thanks guys.

#2

You can graph connections using the hypergraph or the hypershade. Which will show you where the contraint is coming from.

Hypershade info

Select the constrained joints, then graph the inputs, should show you the constraint and whatever is driving the constraint.

#3

OK, i’ve found the name of the parentConstraint, but I still can’t locate it in the scene.
I’ve tried typing the name in the “search by name” box but it says nothing found.