Weird Constraint Issue in Maya 2022 - Move Tool seems "locked"

maxim.2000XMP66
Contributor
Contributor

Weird Constraint Issue in Maya 2022 - Move Tool seems "locked"

maxim.2000XMP66
Contributor
Contributor

Hi!

I am having this weird issue with a control in Maya. It gets parent constraint later in the timeline (current Blend Parent Weight is 0), but the viewport move tool seems locked over the entire range of the timeline.

I can however transform using channelbox or graph editor. Also by creating another object and selecting it in conjunction with the affected control enables me to use the move tool as expected.

 

I have made a brief video about the issue: https://youtu.be/liWAite4cik

 

Thanks for any help!

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Kahylan
Advisor
Advisor
Accepted solution

Hi!

I would have liked to see the Hierachy of the control a bit better in the video, so I could determine what exacly is wrong with it.
But from what I see in the video, you have a double hierarchy on your translates on the curve.

You can clearly see that there is conflicting influence on there because the indicators next to your values in the channelbox are green. You would want those indicators to be either red (keyframe), dark blue (set driven key), light blue (constraint) or yellow (directly connected), but not green (two or more of the others at the same time).

This comes most likely from the fact, that you have constrained and keyed it at the same time and maya tries to somehow blend between the two influences, but in my experiences, this almost never works out as intended.
Maya doesn't consider a constraint to be gone when all the weight values are set to 0 but it still considers the object to be constrained, but just to the point where it was initially constrained to in its local space. The constraint is active and has influence on the object at all times.


Normally you still can move your constrained object around in the Scene. But your Preferences->Animation-> Blend setting is probably on "Never blend with existing influences" or "Blend with everything except Constraints" in which case you cant use your move tool on constrained objects. But that doesn't really matter because either the animation curve node is overwritten by the constraint, so even if you could animate it, it would just snap back as soon as you move around in your timeline or move the constraint.

Or the animation curve node overrides the constraint, and when you move the influence object it is constrained to, nothing happens.

 

If you want to have an object constrained at some points in the timeline but animated in others,I would recommend you to introduce what is called a "free moving control" or "animation control", which is a second object, often a nurbs curve, which stands at the same place in 3D space and in the hierachy as your control curve and is also a constraint parent of your control,  so when you want you object to be "not constrained", you simply switch all other weights on the constraint to 0 and the one on the "free moving control" to 1. And then animate the translates/rotates of your curve by using the "free moving control". That way you don't have hierachical conflicts and it will be a lot more predictable.

Hope this helps.

maxim.2000XMP66
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you so much for the detailed answer! Really appreciate the effort you put in to helping me.

I always thought that constraints could be used together with keyframe animation on the same object, and it kinda worked for me. Also, the workaround with me selecting another object in tandem allowed me to continue working this way, but the "free moving control" is a much better option.

I will keep this in mind next time I build a rig.

 

 

Thanks a lot!

 

 

Kahylan
Advisor
Advisor

It can go well in some cases. I also had scenes where maya could calculate animation and constraints fine at the same time. But then were some scenes where it did't work at all and I couldn't really make out a pattern. So i just started doing an additional control by default. It keeps the rig cleaner and eliminates those kinds of issues without slowing down the rig, so imo it is worth the additional work.

 

Have a nice day!

apraptor22
Contributor
Contributor

After 10 years of using Maya professional in major animation and film studios, I have never seen this until I ran into it today using Maya 2020.4

This is most certainly a Maya bug as the whole point of the blend node is to enable transform information to be BLENDED with a constraint. 

ahrymalyuk
Observer
Observer

I agree with apraptor22 - it should not be like that and looks like a bug. I've been using the constrain this way when the character has to lift something for example, and it worked fine - here it's broken for some reason.

If you use Parallel Mode Evaluation in Maya 2020.4 try switching back to DG and the Blend Parent seems to be working fine.
Maya > Windows > Settings/Preferences > Preferences > Animation > Evaluation

Maya 2022 does not have this issue and the Blend Parent works as expected.

priyanka96ceg
Community Visitor
Community Visitor

Hi

I am having a similar issue and this is not fixed in Maya 2022.4 for me.
Switching to DG works fine though. 
Which version of Maya are you using?

Thanks

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