I’ve coded a patch to the rigging system, that replaces the boolean hinge/NoScale options (in UI, they are called “Inherit Rotation” and “Inherit Scale”) by the ability to choose any bone upper in the chain as reference for rotation/scale.
So, choosing the immediate parent bone is like current default (option set), choosing no bone is old Hinge/NoScale (options cleared), and any other bone in between chain’s root and edited bone is a new possibility.
Now, reactions up to this point have been really mixed (some find it useful, some find it over-complex…), so I need more users’ advices about it! To test it, you can either build blender with that patch: http://codereview.appspot.com/5728052/, or, if running a Linux64, you can download that build: http://graphicall.org/815.
It is cool to have a new possibility that will reduce need of some constraints.
But there is a problem with the way used in your build.
Each time, you want to change parent and use it for rotation and scale; it is not sufficient to change it in parent field. You have to change it in rotation and scale field, too.
It can slow down edition of armature.
Subdivide a bone with a factor at least to 2.
All newly created bones would have first bone as reference for rotation and scale.
Subdivide is a current operation when editing armatures.
If this point is not solved, it could force user to check all bones and considerably slown down armature creation process.
Is it possible to have these fields greyed by default with rotation and scale allways refering to real parent and an option in UI to enable changes?
Lots of rigs depend on independent control of parts… a shrug control on an fk ARM immediately springs to mind…
Or adjusting the chest/spine whilst keeping f K arms in their original rotation.
The existing hinge options were a nice idea but broke as most rigs have some master bone to create a start position and orientation.
I like the idea of this patch, though usually these sort of things are done with constraints.
I remember being very excited the first time I learned rigging in blender by the ease of use of the hinge feature that quickly turned to disappointment in practice.
This patch gets a +1 from me because it makes the feature more usable… I’m still more likely to use a constraint though because it makes debugging easier…
I’m no rigger, but yes, basically it allows to simplify setup by replacing copy rotation/scale constraints with those bone-parenting…
An additional idea (if the patch gets a chance to go in Blender) is to add an op to (eg. with mouse wheel) set rot/scale parents up/down easily and quickly in 3D view.
