Finger joint will not move

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I am completely new to MotionBuilder and have been asked to help clean an animation that is already close to finished. However, I am attempting to get my character to grip a hammer. The parent child constrain has alread been set up and works correctly but I cannot get the character to make a proper closed grip.

The knuckle joint on the character appears to be fixed or frozen and does not move at all when i manipulate the fingers in the controls tab of character tools. I have attached a image of how what the problem looks like. 

I think the issue may be related to the mapping list but I'm not sure. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Alan

[Anonymous]

It's 5 years later and this is still unanswered, not even a suggestion. I am new to motionbuilder and having the same issue. If I figure it out I will post a solution for the next poor soul that has this problem.

Thanks

[jps]

Not sure to clearly understand exactly.

If your fingers are not moving:

It might be a bones/controllers limit that prevent fingers to rotate or a constraint or a pivot axis problem.

Check the finger bones (joints) and control rig controllers properties to see if you have any limits.

Check your bones pivots axis and see if they are properly aligned to the finger length and unified up.

Check your stance pose (pose at characterization). You will have best result if your finger are flat and straight.

Just in case, check as well you keying mode, if you are in "Selection" keying mode, you can't rotate your control rig IK effectors but only rotate FK controllers if your "IK Blend R" % is set to 0. You have to be in "Body part" or "Full Body" to fully use IK Effectors.

If you are talking about the look of the finger:

It's more a modeling, skeleton placement  and skinning problem.

In your screen the fingers are out of proportion. Your fingers looks too thin and  too long compare to your palm. Second knuckles (middle phalanx) are way too long compare to third knuckles (proximal phalanx) .

Your joints looks misplaced. They look to be in the center of the finger section instead of being at  1/3 from the top of the finger section. The inside of the finger (palm side) is where you find most of the fat, finger bones are closer to the top part of fingers section.

Then, you have a skinning problem combine to a topology not adapted to deformations. You should have more edges on the upper knuckle bending part to get a smooth curve when bending, like a fan.

If you want I can have a look to your file.

[Anonymous]

I figured it out. It's some setting in there or It has to be selected a
certain way or something, cant remember exactly what I did together it to
work, it's not a bug though. When I get back on motionbuilder later I will
post the solution.

[mamath20]

You probably have to check Fingers Solving in your characters's solving properties.

[Demille.Hunt]

I know this is super late, but what worked for me was unchecking “story” under the story tab. After doing this, I was able to pose the fingers on the animation layer I created. 

[jsutton2THSK5]

So this is super late, but maybe this will help someone else looking for an answer to this question.
In the Navigator window, go to Characters. Double click on the character name (ex: P01: Character). 
This opens up the character settings. Expand Solvings, and check the box for finger solving.

Hopefully this helps. Took me a minute to figure out where to go for finger solving.

[Kenossas]

Thanks! It was the solution for me 🙂