Parent Constraint Behaviour

[hansesurfer]

sorry for that silly question

I thought the parent constraint would act like the parenting.
But when I constraint one object to another (translate and rotate checkbox on) rotate the constrained object and then the target, the constrained object flips back into its prior position. If it would behave like a real child, shouldn`t it then keep its transformation relative to the parent (target)?

So did I miss something?????

[drblacksnake]

yes.. understanding of constraints.
You should have yet another object and parentConstrain "child" to it. then use constraint's weight blending to "distirbute" "child" between "parents".

[hansesurfer]

...dont`t know if I understood you right..

I know I can weight the child between more parents. But I want a real child behaviour:
when I transform the "parent" object, the "child" should transform with it. When I transform the "child", the transformation should not flip back when again transforming the "parent".

?

[joojaa]

key the objects position when freeing the object back! Its no longer driven by anytrhing the data must be stored someplace. the rest rotate to be specific.*

Its easy enough to make a tmel button on the shelf that acts s a automator for such toggling. Offourse if you susequenbtly need to animate it then its betterto key in a blend pair node. Thats then keyed in with a melscript too automate the grab relaease.

Offourse teh set rest poition can be found in the constrain menu. but id rather use a key rest position. burt it does not key it.

it can be automated by expression but its realy easy to screw this up.

• Its actualy better to have nodes that work technicaly as precieved by node networks as opposed to ones that work magicaly rihght under msot circumstances.

[hansesurfer]

thanks jooja!

found a much easier way:

I grouped every object to itself and parent constrained the group transform to the "parent" object. Then I transform only the objects, not the group nodes. This works fine!

[joojaa]

sure as long as you dont move some opjects back and forth

[matt-gold]

hey people, as long as we are on the topic of parent constraints..
I am just learning maya, coming from max, as my new company uses maya.
I need to animate a parent constraint, and for the purpose of learning, I am using two balls. (ball-A, ball-B, and a cube

• ball-A moves to ball-B, and back to original position.
• cube is stationary, acting as "world" object
• ball-B is parent constrained to cube, weight-1. Also parent constrained to ball-A, weight-0
• when ball-A reaches ball-B, I step-keyframe the weights...cube to 0, and ball-A to 1
• perfect...it's working. ball-B remains stationary untill ball-A hits it, then it sticks to ball-A like a parent-child should.
• problem. I decide that the moment of "stickiness" is wrong. I change it to 3 frames ahead. To do this, I mere move the keyframes on the weight change, for both the ball-A and the cube weights, ahead 3 frames.
• ouch. ball-B remains stationary untill the new appointed frame, then it JUMPS out to meet ball-A's position.

It seems as though when I create the parent constraint, the reletive positions of the two objects are stored, and cannot be changed. How can I change the timing of the weights successfully? I wanted ball-B to wait for the new weight keyframe, and then hook up with ball-A, in the relative position they are in AT THAT FRAME.

did that make sense?? help!!

-matt