CAT rig, bones won't move or rotate, parameters and key info missing.

[Anonymous]

I'm in progress learning how to 3D animate and use CAT rigs animating a character. I have a similar issue to another post from August 2019, when I go into animation mode, but only 1 specific bone for a sword won't move and rotate. it's not frozen I can select it and everything, I have the rotation sphere but it just doesn't move, all of the rest of the bones move absolutely fine it's just this one bone which I created for my characters sword.

I have tried the fix from the post from August checking my animation layers suggested by @ads_royje , but with no luck sadly. Also something else that could be part of the problem is all of the other bones that I select, in the "Motion" tab have PRS Parameters, Euler Parameters, Key Info (Basic), and Key Info (Advanced) when setup/animation mode is toggled on. The 1 bone that won't move or rotate has none of those options appear.

I'd really appreciate some help please, thank you!

[ads_royje]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Thanks for sharing the scene file!

I've been looking at the problem and I was not able to find a better solution than to re-create a new CAT bone to replace the current defective one.

[Anonymous]

@ads_royjeah I was worried that might be the solution.

I know this isn't the place for tutorials, but is it possible to delete, create, and add new bones into the skin modifier without losing all my skinning/weighting?

[ads_royje · Accepted solution]

Hi again @Anonymous ,

Unfortunately, it is the one I have. 😕

But, yes, it is doable to retrieve the Skin weights using the Skin Utilities (in Command Panel > Utilities > More > SkinUtilities)

Steps (seems more complex than actually is):
1. set CAT in Setup mode (So it is in its Skin Position)
2. in Command Panel, extract Skin Data on the Sword mesh 'Sword_test' object (creates a Skin_data_Sword_test in the scene)
3. Remove the old BaronSword bone from the Skin modifier on Sword_test object
4. Select the right palm, where the current BaronSword is located
5. On the Palm, create a new CAT bone
6. Align the new CAT bone on the Old BaronSword in position and rotation, adjust the bone's size.
7. Remove the old CAT bone BaronSword from the scene
8. Rename the new CAT bone to BaronSword
9. Add the new BaronSword bone the Sword_test Skin modifier
10. Select both meshes: Sword_test and Skin_Data_Sword_test
11. in Skin Utilities, use the Import Skin Data
12. in Skin Utilities, map the BaronSword bones together and press Ok button
13. Set CAT in Animation mode.

The new Bone should now behave as expected and the Skin should also be retrieved as it was.
In this case, we could of just re-skin the bone as there are just a few vertices to select and set to 1.0 to the bone, but this Skin Utilities method would work on a more complex Skin Weights.

Also recorded a short video to show all these steps in Max:
https://autode.sk/3ekey8C

Let me know if this helps or not! 🙂
Regards,

[Anonymous]

@ads_royjeI just followed the steps and video this morning, thank you so much it works! You're a life saver haha! 😄