Hello,
as part of my bachelor thesis I have to rig an 6-axis industrial robot. I’m completly new to blender so I’m following this tutorial blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=196975 for the rigging part. I got stuck to clear the roll of my bones (z-axis up, y-axis to the right and x-axis to the front) like the orientation of the view. I tried each option of Recalculate Roll Ctrl+N and also Set Roll Ctrl+R. But I always get a wrong orientation. In the Tutorial is an older version of blender used where Ctrl+N Clears the roll with z-axis up. Screenshot and blender is attached.
You cannot have the Z axis of a vertical bone pointing upwards. The Y axis is ALWAYS along the length of the bone, that is always and always, just in case you are in doubt! Therefore a bone pointing along the Z global axis will always have it’s Y axis pointing upwards, or downwards.
The other axes may be re-aligned if required so that all the bones X axes lie upon the Global X axis - but it is not necessary since you can rotate a bone about either it’s own axes or the global axes. Older tuts can cause you problems as things have developed in Blender. The orientation of the bones will not stop you animating the robot.
