Angle control bone

NeedyN00b · Post by **NeedyN00b** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:08 pm

I wanted my character's head to move a little when the main mouth bone moves, so I set the angle control bone of the head bone to the main mouth bone. Works great.

However, I sometimes want to move the head bone manually (have him look down, etc). I noticed I can't temporarily shut off the angle control bone for the head bone in the middle of the timeline. It's either controlling it or not.

I tried other rigs, but I can't figure out a way to have the head move a little as the mouth moves, but still be able to manually manipulate the head to look down, etc.

Suggestions? Thanks.

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 10:37 pm

maybe add another bone in between - parent the head bone to it so it turns with IT turns, and set the mouth rotation to THAT bone, leaving the actual headbone free...

NeedyN00b · Post by **NeedyN00b** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 4:12 pm

funksmaname wrote:maybe add another bone in between - parent the head bone to it so it turns with IT turns, and set the mouth rotation to THAT bone, leaving the actual headbone free...

Thanks for the reply. You know what's strange? I tried that approach and the animation with the new bone looked crappy to me. It didn't flex the same as the head bone. However, after I saw your post, I had renewed confidence in the approach, but this time I stuck the new bone right in the crux of the neck (instead of an unrelated location), overlapping it in the joint of the head and neck bones. The animation looks good now.

Lesson learned: if you have a bone that's secondary like that and doesn't have any points actually bound to it, it matters where you place it with regard to the motion. This may be obvious to most, but it was news to me.