Basics - Attaching joints to objects

[goldenheart]

Hi there, a basic question for Maya Unlimited 2.5 - I have a tail and some joints, the joints are not moving my tail, do I need to attach them somehow? thanks.

[-b-]

yes, I am just learning maya and I know there are a few ways you can do this but I may be wrong but from what I do know is that you select the joints (in a specific order) say for this example select the joints from the tip of the tail then shift-selecting the rest of the joints individually to the base of the tail and then shift select the tail you modeled last, order is important, then go to the animate-skin-bind skin-rigid bind. and then you can rotate the tail by selecting those bones and rotating them or moving them or whatever from the last bone or second to last bone you select. Does that make sense? Like I said before I am a newbie as well, but I think this is pretty close to what you need to do or what you want to do.

[growler]

Goldenheart- Please dont take this personally, we're all newbies at first, but that was the funniest thing I've ever read. Brilliant. And I thought I was having a bad day.

Anyway, B's correct, although Smooth skinning would be a better solution to your problem. Before you skin, attach your IK handles- a Spline IK handle is most suitable for a tail. Then smooth bind the bones to the geometry.

Have a look in the manuals under "skinning" and "spline IK"

Good luck!

"Fix it in Post!!...... What do you mean, 'We ARE post'???"

[goldenheart]

thankyou --B-- and Growler (glad you found it funny!), I shall try it again