I'm new to this program, the whole program looks great but I'm wondering is there a way to allow indivual bones to rotate independantly and not inherit rotation from their parent?
I've had rigs set up this way in 3d studio max and felt it often helped avoid many problems, such as strange stuttering and jittering in the motion curves. I've not been able to find a way to do this searching help files and this forum. does anyone know a way i can do this?
thanks in advance
make bones only inherit position, not rotation
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
It can be done using scripting. There is a similar example of embedded script create by LM in the thread where he presented the embedded scripts.
Anyway, once the bone is using the script to override parent rotation you only would be able to rotate it using the script and another controlling bone.
Also as alternative, you can do a funny setup:
Say that bone B is the bone that you want to be parented to bone P but you want that B follows P in position but not in angle.
Unparent bone B and don't move it from it position.
So let's not parent B to P directly but using a new bone C. Create a bone C at the same place than B but maybe different angle. Reparent bones this way P<C<B
So you have now parented bone C to bone P at the same place where B was parented to bone P before. Also constraint bone C position to be the same as bone B position.
Now constraint the bone C to rotate -1 times what bone P does. It would anti-rotate the bone C as many times needed to keep the bone B with no rotation at all. Then rotate B freely because it rotates around bone C.
If you cannot build it, please let me know and I'll do the rig for you.
-G
Anyway, once the bone is using the script to override parent rotation you only would be able to rotate it using the script and another controlling bone.
Also as alternative, you can do a funny setup:
Say that bone B is the bone that you want to be parented to bone P but you want that B follows P in position but not in angle.
Unparent bone B and don't move it from it position.
So let's not parent B to P directly but using a new bone C. Create a bone C at the same place than B but maybe different angle. Reparent bones this way P<C<B
So you have now parented bone C to bone P at the same place where B was parented to bone P before. Also constraint bone C position to be the same as bone B position.
Now constraint the bone C to rotate -1 times what bone P does. It would anti-rotate the bone C as many times needed to keep the bone B with no rotation at all. Then rotate B freely because it rotates around bone C.
If you cannot build it, please let me know and I'll do the rig for you.
-G