"Reset XForm" Not Working as Intended

[Anonymous]

I've been stuck with a gimbal lock error when trying to export my model for quite awhile now, and stumbled across this tutorial: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-animation-and-rigging/warning-gimbal-lock-exist-error-after-c...

I've been going through this to try and solve my issue, which is apparently related to scaling. However, at about 3:35 of the video, he walks through the steps of a Reset XForm process, which does a very different thing on his model than mine. When I try and do it, I get the results in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PQxmQIo8oY&feature=youtu.be

The components just scatter all over the place; they seem to be skinned to the biped rig somehow but completely lose all sense of orientation. It's worth noting that originally, the model was a bunch of individual objects (sticks, balls, and other simple shapes) all skinned to the same rig. HOWEVER, I've since cloned and attached them all into a single object and reskinned the entire thing, so I can't possibly imagine why they'd be separating like this now. I'm at a complete loss for what to do, as I've been stuck trying to export this model for ages and there's so little information I've been able to find. If anyone can tell me what's happening, I'd greatly appreciate it. I've also attached my project file if it's helpful.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis · Accepted solution]

Hello @Anonymous and welcome to the community,

This is expected on some level, once you skin something you can't do much to the Xform of the underlying object because the bones' relation to those verts is changing.  This is also strange because your bind pose is actually an action pose that is asymmetrical.  This will cause problems down the line, the typical pose for a character preskin is something like this.  

With enough time and patience we might be able to work it out, but that's just teaching you the wrong way to go about things.  In many cases you can simply uncheck and recheck "Always Deform" but since your bind pose is incorrect here you are basically starting over with the skin.  

What you should do is get the character posed in a typical bind pose as seen in the link above.  (Possibly by going back to before you attached them all.)  If that's not possible pose the character to resemble the correct bind pose, then collapse the stack which will cement that skin into place.  Next reset the xform on your model, and then reskin the character.  In general you need to have the Xforms proper before you start skinning.  

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best Regards,

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

I just wanted to follow up here, any thoughts on my previous post? Thanks for the update!

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hi Alfred, sorry for the delay. Yes, this was in fact the issue. As my model had very simple skin weighting (each element was fully weighted to a single bone), I just cleared the animation track, collapsed my skin to the resulting bind pose, fixed the gimbal lock-related issues (reset xform and bone scaling), and reskinned the model. Thanks for your help!

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

No problem at all @Anonymous, thank you for the update.  This has happened to us all at one point or another.  Thanks again for the update and I'm glad it's working now.  

Best Regards,