Mirror Joint tool bug?

[mutiny33]

Hello,

I believe the mirror joint tool does not correctly copy the orientation behavior of the local rotation axis of the source joint.

Suppose you created a joint and manipulated its local rotation axis (in component mode turn on local rotation axis and rotate it). In the attribute editor of that joint you will notice that the transform's Rotate Axis is manipulated. This is an offset added to any children of the joint.

Now mirror that joint (behavior on). The local rotation axis appears to look the same but if you check in the attribute editor the new joint has not copied the Rotate Axis offset.

This leads to a problem because say you created 2 spheres with their local rotation axis on. Parent one to the original joint and one to the mirrored joint and freeze transform on both spheres. You will see the local rotation axis align with the parent, but the original adds the Rotate Axis offset to it.

What to do?? This leads to a problem when I try to mirror skin weights. In the script editor it skips the joints that have the Rotate Axis value offset. So it cannot find the appropiate mirrored joint.

Whew! That was alot to say.. hope im wrong!
Thanks,
Daniel

[warpcat]

The more complexity you add to your skeleton, the less likely the tools are to work. FYI, I only ever build my rigs with the joints alligned to the worldspace axes. I'll build it, then "freeze it" in space. In the "rig", I define all sorts of wacky angles for the anim-controllers, but the joints themselves are always alligend to the world. Makes mirriroing, and copying of weights much easier. People think they need all this zany values in their joints,,..... but if you have a rig controlling them (say with constraints) the joints can be at any orientation whatsoever, since the rig is what the animators are actually touching.