Move the joint after skinned without change the shape of the model.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I am new in Maya, but I encountered a big problem. 

The question is that I wanted to change the position of the joint after skinned without changing the shape of the model.

So I searched the information on Google, they said I can use the tool of "move skinned joint tool", but I can't find it on menu.

(I use 2017 version of Maya)

I wonder to know how to unbind the model and the bone so that I could move the single joint?

Also, the adjustment will not remove the skin weight I set before when I bind them together again.

Really appreciated for your help and kind reply.

Thanks.

[kirbysteele]

Hey youe.shih,

In answer to your first question, the move skinned joints tool is located under the Skin tab. The trick is that you need to have the dropdown (right below the file tab) in the top left set to rigging. I attached a screen shot.

In answer to your second question, once you "unbind" a model you are by definition getting rid of the skin weights on the mesh. But you can save that information by using the export skin weights option. This will export an image file for each joint which saves the skin weight information. Then you can unbind the mesh and move the joint to wherever you want, rebind the mesh to the skeleton and then use the import skin weights tool. I attached a screen pic showing where there tools are located. I will say that I have had mixed results with this method, but it is possible.

One last trick you can do is to simply create a new joint at the location you want and add the new joint to the original skeleton. After doing this you can use the add influence tool and copy the skin weight information from the old joint to the new joint. After there is no more skin weight on the old joint you can use the remove influence tool and then delete the old joint. 

Hope this helps!

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Dear kirbysteele,

Thanks for your kindly help.

I thought that I used the latest version of Maya, so I didn't see the "skin" tab on the menu.

Now my tab looks like this (the skin tab disappeared...)

Moreover, I found the "paint skin weight" tool below the "Rigging" tab, but I can't find the tool of "move skinned joint".....

Is there any solution for this situation?

Thank you for taking time... 🙂

[kirbysteele · Accepted solution]

No problem,

I probably used the wrong language when describing the "Rigging Tab". It is actually more of a dropdown menu and I should have highlighted it in the first post. This is the dropdown that you need to switch to rigging because right now it is set to modeling then you will be able to find all the tools you need.

.

Also if you hold down the spacebar you get the full tool selection panel and you can navigate to the right tool using that if you want.

[Anonymous]

Dear kirbysteele,

REALLY THANKS for your detailed explanation.

I FINALLY found it on the menu!!!!!!!

Now I can continue my work and try to modify the joint..... really appreciated the help 

Sincerely,

Youi

[kirbysteele · Accepted solution]

Glad that worked! If you want to accept my last post as a solution then other people could find this as a solution if they have the same problem. 

[Anonymous]

Can this also be used to just orient a joint, as want to restrit the joints rotation to an Axis, to then turn it into an Ik, the roation now though doesnt fit with the geometry?

[kirbysteele]

Hello kannakrzan,

Others can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the move skinned joints tool can only adjust the position of a skinned joint and not the rotation. If you do need to fix the rotation of a skinned joint, a reasonably fast way of correcting this could be as follows. Make a new joint, snap it in the exact position as the problem joint, set the rotation of the new joint to the correct orientation, and use freeze transformations to 0 out the rotation. Then you could add the new joint to the skinned mesh using Edit Influences> Add new joint and make sure that the joint is added with no skin weights. Finally you should copy the joint weights from the old joint to the new joint, add the joint to the joint hierarchy at the correct level, and delete the old joint. This is not an easy thing to fix and often I will just completely unbind a skeleton and fix any rotation errors and rebind the entire skeleton.

However it sounds like what you wanting to do is make a IK control. A structure for rigging that I like to use is to avoid having controls on the skinned joints. Instead, you have duplicate joint chains that have FK or IK controls that the skinned joints are parent constrained to. When you make the control joints you can orient them to whatever orientation works best then simply parent constrain the original skinned joints using maintain offset. Now you should be able to move the control joints easily because they are set up with optimal rotations and the skinned joints will follow exactly even though they might be oriented incorrectly.

Hope this helps!

[remyazei]

Move skinned joints worked for me 🤟