Posted by kray-zee on March 09, 1998 at 14:00:31:
In Reply to: Bones in Lightwave posted by Harkonnen on March 09, 1998 at 10:07:43:
: Welp....I have been animating some of my models with Bones in lightwave, and I am finding it infernally difficult to place the bones exactly where and rotated how I need to due to the clunkey placement on the X Y and Z axis...no matter what I do, the bones never seem to want to go exactly where I want them to...I have tried disabling axis, working in the 2d screens, and just about everything I can think of but I still get bones sticking out at odd angles, that won't seem to move right when I try to change their location or anything....does anyone have any tips for bone placement they could possibly let me in on? The manual is not very informative.
first, make sure the model isn't in some weird pose; the back and head should be straight, the legs should be straight, and the arms should be sticking out at a 90 degree angle from the body. lay the model down flat on it's back, and proceed to bone the model. if you need to rotate a bone when placing it, try very hard to keep it at 90 degrees all the time, it will make your life much easier. also, when adding bones, don't add a new bone each time you want a new bone, add a new child bone. my heirarchies usually look something like this:
parent bone->spine->neck->head
parent bone->spine->left collarbone->left shoulder->left forearm->left hand
parent bone->spine->right collarbone->right shoulder->right forearm->right hand
parent bone->hips->left thigh->left calf->left ankle->left foot
parent bone->hips->right thigh->right calf->right ankle->right foot