Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Tips and Tricks
OK, this is actually a disclaimer. There are a lot of joints in this hand that in
nongame situations would definitely be needed. If you're screaming that
there are no metacarpal joints, you're right. In most higher-rez situations
these are a vital part of good hand rigging. To make matters worse, we
are leaving out joints in the thumb that are critical for hand close-ups. But, for
game situations on hardware today we want to strip down rigs to the joints
we need. Five years from now, even on mobile devices we might throw joints
in with reckless abandon. Today though, the compromises are necessary.
Step 51:
Orient upper body joints. Select AC_Back_Base (probably easiest
in the Outliner). Then choose Animation>Skeleton>Orient Joint. The
results can sometimes be a little tough to see, but see the before and after
shown in
Figure 10.24
.
Figure 10.24
Before and after
Orient Joint. Notice how the joints
(once oriented) point downward
toward the next joint in the chain.
Why?
When placing joints, it is pretty impossible (especially through the hands)
to get them in just the right place without having to go back and move
them. The problem is that the orientation of the parent joint (to whichever
joint is created) is defined on the first click of placement. So when the joints
are later moved into their correct locations, the parent joints no longer are
pointing toward the next joint, which makes for awkward animation later.
The Orient Joint command (which by default orients all the children of the
selected joint) tells all the joints to take a look at the next joint in their chain
and point to that chain (although this isn't perfect; see the following steps).
Importantly this only affects the joint's orientation, not its rotation (as can
be seen in the Channels box). This means that later, zeroing out the rotation
values of the joints will return them to this neutral pose.
