General Category > Ongoing Anim8or Development

New Bone Editing Tool

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Steve:
Ah ha! I had this problem, too. Try Build 1348. I changed it o that when you change the diameter of the bone the ball at the end is reduced proportionally.

Note: you can change the default bone diameterin the Options->NewJointLimits menu command so you don't have to keep editing a bunch of newly added small bones, etc.

Alpha2:
Thanks for the reply! I'm trying it now and this ...seems... to do the trick, for the time being at least. I still need to finish the hands on this model and test poses before I can really decide.

In earlier versions, when I create a model I was usually okay with the default size of the bones until I get to doing hands and fingers at which point I'd just adjust the length, diameter and limits as I created them because you need to be so fine with placing them inside the digits to avoid them looking like they were mangled when you bend a finger. I feel like having the bones connected directly at the ends made positioning them a little more precise. Less visual clutter to see exactly where the pivot points were inside the figure. The spheres seem do make it easy to grab and manipulate larger limbs in scene mode, like it's an easier target to click than the bone itself somehow, so that's a plus.

I see some merit in this method of adjusting the bones in figure mode. It's fast and depending on how you make characters it could increase work speed, but I'm not fully on board yet. It's hard to explain, but I feel like the rolling and twisting the axis discs do as I move the bone forces me to have to reposition everything and makes me hesitant to use it.

Steve:
I just posted a build with a similar Joint Rotate tool added to the Scene editor here: build 1363. It is slightly different in that the child bones retain their global orientation and the bone length don't change.

Note: There are several things that I'm still working on. Joint limits aren't obeyed, and locked IK targets aren't obeyed.

I've included a simple puppet character with unlimited joint angles for you to experiment with. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Michel Colaço:
Hello Steve, this is very useful. I believe it will speed up the animation!

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