Problems with Swivel Angle and Knee Controls (3ds max)

#1

Hi,

i´m currently following the DT Tutorial on Character Rigging for Production.
I´m at the point of creating knee controls for the swivel angle and now i got a problem.

Even though i followed the tutorial almost step by step, i had to adjust some bones to fit my character, so basically the leg bones aren´t completely planar.
Now when i pick a target for the swivel angle, the knee bone slightly changed its rotation.
At first i didn´t pay much attention to that, but now i realized, that it messes up the rig:
If i know move the foot control around, at some point it completely rotates around the knee bone.
Hope you understand what i´m talking about, i´m stll pretty new to this way of rigging and i´d love to know what i could do to solve this problem.

#2

here’s a little solution on how to align perfectly the vector target before assingning it to the knee IK control.

I used this solution in an homemade script to built an IK FK switch and and align the switch to the previous mode ( ex:align IK to FK)

create a 3 sided plane and with the snap tool align each vertex to the tight bone, knee and ankle

take your controller and align it to the vertex normal of the knee ( use the align to normal tool I think, like I said I use a script but you can do it in max)
now your plane should be aligned with the 3 bones normal… now just pull it out ( the controller might not be aligned to be perpendicular with the bones so you might have to move it out using 2 axis)

#3

Tried to follow your steps, but that didn´t work for me.
Found the solution though and it was really simple: I forgot to freeze Transforms on the control object.
That solved it. Thanx though!

#4

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