Local Rotation Axes not selectable in Maya 2018 VP2.0

[pavelR.]

Hello,

seems like a similar issue back in 2013?

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-modeling/local-rotation-axes-not-visible/m-p/4277659

Selecting the Join Local Rotation Axes is not working using VP2.0

The only workaround is to manually enable the legacy viewports, select the LRA.. and rotate it.. 

Once they are selected in the legacy viewport, you can switch back to VP2.0 and rotate them, but selecting another LRA won't work (from VP2.0)

This did work in 2017 and 2016, why the sudden change.. especially when by default there are no more legacy viewport options?

- pavel

[pavelR.]

There is clearly an offset in VP2.0, happens also to the other students.

[kelly_hynes]

Hi Pavel,

Thanks for flagging this.  I've reproduced the issue and will log a defect today.   I'll try to get this one fixed as soon as possible.

Best regards,

Kelly

[kelly_hynes]

Pavel,

This has been logged:

MAYA-86338 Local Rotation Axes not selectable in Maya 2018 VP2.0.

Thanks again,

Kelly

[pavelR.]

Hello,

this didn't make it into 2018.1 ? 

Cannot find it mentioned at release-notes, hence why I am a bit shy to delete the prefs since this is not (for me) not working in 2018.1.

[pavelR.]

In addition to that:

The motion-path tangent handles  (Create Editable Motion Trail) also cannot be selected when using VP2.0.

On another students-machine with Maya 2017 it works with VP2.0, just not in 2018. 

Windows 10, Maya 2018.1

Edit:

Something is not working with the selection priorities, the Motion Trail Point and Motion Trail Tangent priorities seem to have no effect in VP2.0, and the handles are only selectable if there is no geometry behind them (in VP2.0 on 2018). 

Tried to set the priority from 11 to 100, no change, went also the other way (prio 1), same. Is there a workaround until it eventually will be fixed some day? Or is it wiser to go down to 2017?

Thank You.

[pavelR.]

Too bad I can't edit it again, but to be fair just wanted to point out that the motion-trail-tangent-handle-selection-'issue' seems to also relate to the Near Clip Plane setting (Camera), which causes quirks when selecting handles if they are near/behind faces (Geo in a Reference-Layer didn't work). 

In this particular case the near plane was set to 1000 (large scale environment, the far-plane is.. far far away, and to cut the z-fighting/flickering the near-plane was pushed further away).

So lowering the near-plane distance allows selection of the tangent-handles again, also interesting: xray-joints mode (even with the with the 'extreme' frustum settings) seems to also allow selection of the tangent-handles. But since the selection works (with the very same camera settings) in the legacy views, there seems to be some ..weirdness.. with VP2.0, at least for this case there seems to be a (two) workaround(s). ...maybe this info helps some poor soul..

ps: it would be nice to merge the last two posts. 

[kelly_hynes]

Hi Pavel,

MAYA-86338 Local Rotation Axes not selectable in Maya 2018 VP2.0.

...is currently scheduled to be fixed for next release.

Kelly

[Anonymous]

This problem still persists post-update for Maya LT 2018 (2018.1)

[T0M0X]

Hope this will be fixed in upcoming Update 2

[mp34]

I'm having this issue in maya 2017 update 3 also.

Could AD please stop moving things around in Maya and breaking them? It's hard enough to remember all this stuff without someone "reorganising" the interface and breaking something fundamental like this. Thank you Autodesk i know you'll listen 🙂

[Anonymous]

I've decided to try and just rotate the joints then use the freeze transformation option for rotate/joint orient. Is there a better workaround?

[Anonymous]

Yeah I'm using the freeze Transformation options with just Rotate selected. It only works if I adjust the Gimbal axis orientation in the rotate tool settings. 

[Anonymous]

The selection point seems to be 14 units in world Y away from the joint. 

This is terrible.  This has cost me days of trouble and weeks of puzzlement.

You can directly select the joint to change the local axis in 2016, but not in 2017 and 2018.....

You have to select an invisible point, 14 units in front of the joint in world Y. 

Is this an improvement? 

Can we at least get a locator or a dummy, or something to show the selection point of each joint for local axis modification while in "?" mode? 

Help? 

[Anonymous]

I'm on the latest version and am having a hell of a time trying to correct joint orientation. I'm teaching an intro class and don't want to rely on scripts because I would have to go through IT to get them installed on all the workstations.

Just trying to select the local rotation angle is driving me insane! Not sure what to tell my students other than randomly hunt and peck at the screen, it really makes the software seem like a joke.

[skullmunky]

I'm in the same boat 😞  Luckily I'm teaching an intermediate rigging class so I use this as a fun object lesson on how part of the job of being a TD is finding workarounds for whatever a given maya release has just broken.  Had to rearrange my syllabus to give an impromptu MEL intro.  My workaround:

1. Display->Transform Display->Local Rotation Axes so you can see what you're doing

2. select the joint

3. pop open the script editor, copy & paste the line of MEL for the selection, append .rotateAxis to select the component

select -r joint2.rotateAxis;

4. rotate it

or here's a snippet to put in the shelf to make it a little smoother

$j=`ls -sl`;
select ($j[0]+".rotateAxis");

[Anonymous]

I appreciate the reply, but this is a pretty horrible response for an intro level course.

I understand that this is a legacy software with a lot of band-aid solutions to common problems, but I have experience with other 3D animation software and to see this level of deficiencies is really disappointing in an industry standard platform.

To create such a high bar for basic level character animation functions is really shooting yourself in the foot. I hope someone from actual software development gets a clue.

[mp34]

Does anyone from Autodesk read this? They keep charging more for their
software but they haven't fixed something that they broke a few versions
ago.

This is an important feature for rigging TDs. While it's great to find a
workaround of sorts it really shouldn't be necessary. They should repair
what they broke ASAP

[stephenkmann]

What version of Maya 2018 are you on.. 

 I am on 2018.4  and I don't get this issue 

[pavelR.]

Well, they "seem" to have fixed that in 2018.4, I think even with 2018.3 (??) not sure ..2018.3 broke weight-painting bad enough to be not usable with more than one blendshape.. and 2018.4 ..."seems" to work with the LRA selection, but then.. I tested it only on some randomly created and translated joints... learning another DCC package.. but will certainly check out what 2019 has to offer (or what's so badly broken that you can notice it within the first 30min of use... QA? not present..)..once they release it.