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Pole Vector being stubborn

4 REPLIES 4
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Message 1 of 5
kennethdgreenblatt
1212 Views, 4 Replies

Pole Vector being stubborn

I ran into a rigging snafu I've never seen before and I could really use some help.


I am trying to set up a pole vector on an IK Arm I am creating. The model was *not modeled in T-Pose so the bone for the arm travels through multiple planes. Obviously this makes making a pole vector difficult, but I found a workaround that has never failed me before, until now.

Work around: Use the Create Poly tool and snap to the shoulder, wrist, and elbow. Then, grab the vert attached to the elbow, change move settings to Normal, and drag it out. Then make the poly live, snap your elbow controller to the dragged out vert, then select the IK Handle, the Elbow controller, and create a Pole Vector. (the purpose of the poly tool is to ensure you created 1 solid plane for the PV, and snapping the elbow controller sets up the solid plane for the PV)

The elbow control does move the elbow, but when I drag the IK Hand up through tY, the elbow seems to fall off and doesn't truly aim at the controller. I have used the create poly method to ensure a solid plane for the PV in the past, and it's worked 100% of the time - I have to rig a lot of models that aren't truly in T-Pose.

I don't think I need a no flip setup, as I opened up some older rigs I made using this method and they work perfectly; As I drag the arm up the elbow always faces the PV control, as it should. This rig is throwing me for an absolute loop, I simply don't understand why the elbow won't stay locked onto the direction of the PV control. It tries, but it starts to bend in the wrong directions. After orienting the IK rig I grabbed the arm and set preferred angle, but I'm not sure if that helps (or hurts).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Kenny

4 REPLIES 4
Message 2 of 5

Maybe the arm joints' orientations aren't planar. Are you able to post the Maya file?


Greg Hendrix - Senior Technical Animator
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Message 3 of 5

I appreciate the instant reply! 

 I got it figured out, it's a cross between the model's arm going through different planes and 'unsound rigging'. 


 I removed the elbow from the chain, froze transforms on the shoulder-wrist, and basically made sure all orientation was 0'd out, and had to very delicately use the orient joint rotations to move it to where it roughly needs to be. Unfortunately the bones will never be where I want them, but they're at a point that delivers a single plane for a PV. It took a lot of messing around with aim constraints, freezing transforms, and a myriad over other crap. 

Thanks!


Kenny

Message 4 of 5

don't parent the pole vector object to the shoulder joint or any other joint which the pole vector influences.

 

Message 5 of 5

Why would i parent a pole vector to the shoulder? Or any other joint for that matter? I feel like you didn't truly read my post, or my own reply saying i figured it out. Oh well, thanks though for replying to a 5 year old thread. Cheers, mate!

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