Changing bone rotation direction settings

NotAnArtist

I was here a few days ago asking about a butterfly model that I rigged for practice. I wonder if I could ask one more question. It's unusual for me to get more than 6 or 7 days a month of time to study these things, so little setbacks like this are frustrating.

When selecting both left and right wings to "bend" them up and down, one goes up as the other goes down. It'll be easier for animation if I can select them both and use the parameters slider to move them in the same direction at the same time.

All the online tutes for the Joint Editor tool are for older versions, so they don't jive with my DS4.5 program's version. They don't mention how to edit bone rotation settings after they've been created, anyway. The Joint Editor doesn't seem to have a way to edit rotation, even though I see the yellow circle there that represents "bend." The Universal tool only moves the actual wing, not the bone.

For sure there's a way to reverse the various parameters' direction of movement, right? Many thanks for anyone's help!

Richard Haseltine

Not easily - you'll see the same with the arms on most humans, for example. What you can do is create your own "pose control" parameters, on the root of the butterfly or perhaps on its thorax, either separate controls for each wing or one master control for both. The simplest way to do this is to rotate the wing to its maximum extent (up or down, whichever needs the most play), then right-click on the Property Editor pane's tab (or click the menu button in the top corner, but I prefer to keep the pane tucked away behind others in a single group as having it open when you select Genesis can give a several minute wait while it populates) and select ERC Freeze... from the menu. Pick the butterfly as the figure in the first list, the butterfly's root or thorax in the second, and click Create New... for Property. Leave type as Float, set the path as you like (this is how it will be grouped on the Parameters pane - Actor/Pose Control would be standard) give it a name and a label (name is the hidden, must be unique designator, label is what you see in the control panes) and click Accept. Now you should see your new Property listed in the Freeze Dialogue, so all that remains is to make sure that the rotation you want, and nothing you don't want, is check in the Freeze Properties list. Before clicking Accept uncheck Restore Figure Rigging - if you haven't yet memorised your figure this will undo a lot of your work. The other options can be left - they will undo the pose, and set the new controller so that you should end up with the figure looking the same. Repeat for any other controls you want to add. Optionally, having made the new sliders and checked they work, you can click the gear icon on the slider and open the Parameter settings dialogue, then adjust the min and max values as required.

NotAnArtist

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Richard! It was easy and works perfectly!

How did you learn this?? I just tried looking for information on the Property Editor. Other than a few forum questions, there's only a couple of ancient videos, circa 2008. This is obviously an important tool. No manuals exist?

And by the way, you're here on Sunday? Don't you ever take a day off?

Thanks again, very much, for your help.

Richard Haseltine

This is where I type something like "When I was young we didn't have no property editors, we set up our ERC by carving the links into stone tablets with mammoth tusks, and were glad of it." - which is somewhat of a lie, but we did do it manually which of course made it much easier to see how tools like this worked.

NotAnArtist

Yeah, and that was in pre-computer days, which made it even harder.

Not to complain, though. I don't remember getting products this good for free in those days.

This is a good forum and I thank you. Cheers, amigo!