Change Parent Mid-Shot?

#1

I’m convinced that there is a way to do this, but I’ve forgotten…

I have a few objects that need to change parents (or IK target in the case of using Biped) in the middle of a shot.
For example, a guy smoking a cigar; how do I change from parented to his head to parented to his fingers?

Another is a character who is mildly irate while standing at a table, and being gently pushed down onto her chair by a companion, then straightening her chair; I need to be able to have her hands in place on the table while the chair moves, but then in place on the chair when she’s adjusting it back under her butt, which would require animating the IK target for her bones.

I suppose I could split each of these up into separate shots on the keyframes where the parent changes; it’s a very kludgey, inelegant solution, though. Is there a way to do this? I’m sure that there is a way to do this.

#2

You can use an link constraint.

#3

First, thank you.

Second, while that seems to work for ordinary objects–which is fine for the cigar example–it doesn’t appear to be an option for Biped objects. Do you know how to do this with a hand?
Without it, I’m left with putting Dummy objects on the chair and hoping to hell that the Align controls and linear keyframing can keep it looking realistic. Or doing that for the table and having the chair be the IK target.

Thanks again.

#4

Yes, the cigar scene is easy to setup, just link constraint the cigar first to the head than to the hand. The second one is difficult to set up. I didn’t used Cs for long time and i don’t have 3ds max on my computer installed but as far I can remember , you can link the biped ik’s to a body part, prop or to another biped’s ik controller. When you select for example a biped’s hand, its under -animation- key info- ik. you can link it to another biped’s hand.
Here is a video i found. At the end of the video she links the left hand to the sword which is linked to the right hand via link constraint. Maybe this will help.

#5

Right, but…I don’t see any way to switch from one controller to another.

1 - Hand is resting on table; character is using it as support.
2 - Character sits down
3 - Character moves hand from table to seat in order to adjust chair’s position

As near as I can tell, there is no way to change which object is the focus; if you try to re-link it with Select IK object in the middle, it re-links every keyframe to the new IK object…which is silly; you’d think they’d have known all along that people would want this function and built it in.

Yes, but you can’t then change from Biped’s other hand on, say, Keyframe 0, to table/chair on Keyframe 30; you get one IK target, and that’s it.

#6

The only solution i can think of is to link the bipeds hand to a dummy via bipeds ik tab ( and like you said, you can link it to one object only) , then you can link constraint the dummy to various objects, to table on frame 0, then to chair on frame 30. And when the contsraint is not needed you can turn it off via bipeds controls. -key info- ik- ik blend- 1 or zero.

#7

Ugh.

What a giant pain in the butt.

Well, if it works, it works, but I still maintain that this is such a basic function people will need that not including it, built-in, as part of every object’s animation functions, was a weapons-grade oversight.

#8

Yes, but I can’t even remember when character studio got the last update, in 2000? If Character studio is not a necessity, you can use Cat ( last update was again long time ago) but at least you can use standart max constraints on the rig. or you can use a modern automated rig, perhaps like this.
https://www.superrune.com/tools/supersimplerig.php

#9

That’s fine; I haven’t been able to afford a new copy of MAX since 2013, so…yeah.

Well, let’s put it this way: I’m on shot #70 with nearly six minutes in the can; I’m definitely not switching to a new skeletal system at this point. :slight_smile:

#10

:confused: Got it, I had to animate with biped for couple of jobs, it’s a pain in the butt. I hope the dummy constraint thing will work for you. Wish you luck with your shots. :vulcan_salute:

#11

I’ve seen systems that are allegedly better than Biped, but I find it (mostly) intuitive, where the others seemed to fight with me every step of the way when I’d try to do things.

The real killer, though, are the modifiers; Physique is annoyingly counter-intuitive in many ways, and you can’t rotate the camera around points when you’re assigning them, which makes doing fingers–and especially the thumb–difficult.
But Skin is a giant pain in the butt because, when I’m assigning weights, I can’t lock the percentage of a vert that is attached to more than two bones; if I need to change the weight of Bone A, want Bone B to stay at its current percent, so that the adjustment of Bone A only affects Bone C, not Bone B…well, I can’t. (I hope that makes sense.) However, its main draw is symmetry, so I don’t have to rig those fingers for each hand.

I d’know.

#12

Oh, and thanks. This project is looking really good so far, and I’m very confident. :slight_smile: