Force a channel to local through expressions?

[spamkill]

Before I get replies about the wrong thing, I already know how to change from world to local coordinates, I'm not asking how to do that. I hope I worded this correctly to get the point of what I'm trying to do across:

Is it possible to force a specific channel (i.e. translate Z) through expressions or something to move in local space whenever you click and drag it in the channel box? I have a cartoon character whose knee is rotated up too high and the only way to make it look right is to translate the knee's Z axis in local space. It would be nice for the people animating him to be able to just click and drag this channel without having to manually switch world and local coordinates each time.

-Spamkill

[tnt]

first create new float attributes for that object (I use "pCube1" in this case)
for example "localX", "localY", "localZ" _and_ "dummy";
and then add this expression to the "dummy" attribute:

//**********************************
pCube1.dummy = pCube1.localTrX + pCube1.localTrY + pCube1.localTrZ;
move -a -os -x getAttr pCube1.localTrX;
move -a -os -y getAttr pCube1.localTrY;
move -a -os -z getAttr pCube1.localTrZ;
//**********************************

the dummy-attribute is just a trick to force maya to execute the mel-lines when you change a localXYZ attribute.
If you want to do the same with rotation you have to use the "rotate" command instead of "move", or you could use "xform" for both.

hope this helps

[spamkill]

Just what I needed. Thanks!