ok… lets cut to the chase… time for an incredibly convoluted and confusing series of questions with hopefully simple answers
problem 1: I need “dynamic transform orientations”… I understand that I can create a new transform orientation from a selected object, vertex, edge, face, bone or whatever… unfortunately it seems when i move this object, the transform orientation remains aligned with the objects original rotation… I need it to update whenever I move the object from which I obtained the transform orientation…
put simply. I make a walk cycle, or whatever, and ,for example, I create a new transform orientation using the characters pelvis bone…now, say I move the feet of the character, the transform “gizmo widget thingy” is aligned to the hip bone
(this is perfect)…
however , if I rotate the hip bone, the new transform orientation doesn’t realign with the hip bones new rotation and so the feet will not move “in line” with the hip bones new rotation… and I need it to… so I’m wondering if there’s something I overlooked…
Second problem: Of course Using the numpad is the fastest way to align the view to “top left bottom right front back”
and using the shift+numpad is the fastest way of aligning the view to an objects local axis, however when I have the option “auto perspective” selected… using the numpad alone will turn the view orthographic (exactly what I need) whereas using shift+numpad seems to completely ignore the “auto perspective” option… why is this, and is there any way to make it work “correctly”?.
I realize this could be seen as whiny-finicky-complaining. As its simply a matter or pressing numpad 5 to make it orthographic, but seeing as how I blaze on shortcut keys like a double jointed octopus, I often don’t even realize I have it in perspective mode until its too late, and this wastes a fair chunk of time undoing all the actions, putting it in ortho and redoing them correctly. so auto perspective on “shift+numpad” actions would be epic, if such a thing exists.
Third issue: I created a scene using the integrated bullet physics, and grouped all of the objects I need together and a new group, however when I try to append this group into a new blend file, It seems the physics breaks, and although the objects seem to have physics properties and rigid body constraints, they don’t move at all when playing back the scene.
I can however append the whole scene and it works just fine… Is this a problem or bug, or is it simply an issue with the way the “rigid body world” is carried over to a new blend file?
Ok… final issue… (more of a query about a possibly addon (if it exists, or could be made) I need to do several things at once on a LOT of different objects and bones…
I need to change constraint influence values and also rigid body physics values…
basically I have a very stable ragdoll rig which I made using rigid bodies and RB constraints, and then using bone constraints on a character rig to move the character “with” the rigid bodies, unfortunately the rig cannot be posed by manipulating the bones in the regular way, so In order to properly use this rig I need it to be activatable / deactivatable… the idea I have to do this involves keying the rigid bodies “animated” attribute while keying the bone constraints influence to zero or one, depending on whether its activating or deactivating…
for example the character is animated in a run cycle, then gets stunned on ,say, frame 100… at which point
the bone constraints influence is set to 1 (meaning the bones follow the RB’s)
the rigid bodies constraints (holding them to the bones while animation plays) is set to zero,
the rigid bodies “animated” attribute is keyed “unticked” (letting them fall like normal)
now for example when the character is “unstunned”
the opposite is keyed in, and SOMEHOW make the characters rig hold the position of the ragdoll RB objects but without constraining them… so we can continue animating the character “getting up”
in theory… All I need is to be able to operate various types of keyframe on several objects at the same time, I would also need a method of making the characters regular armature keyed to the position of the RBs (so the bones dont jump to their original position , as usually happens when removing the influence of constraints. (a set inverse function for rotation constraints would be useful here)) … the ragdoll is made from some 25-30 different RBs so doing this by hand would be very time consuming…
also is there any way to operate keyframes by input device such as a 360 controller -(lol i really need this functionality)
If anyone has any ideas, or questions, please respond… I know the post is long winded but the basic questions aren’t all that complex (if you can understand my warped wordology)