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Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 2:45 pm
by IestynR
Hello,

I've currently got a shot where Malcolm is talking into the phone, and I'd like to constrain the hand to the head, so when I rotate the head the hand that's up to his ear rotates with it.

So I've created a locator, and positioned it where it should be, and created a Null group above the locator, but when I go to parent the IK hand to the new locator, for some reason it doesn't connect, so whenever I move the locator, the hand stays in place. (Also, the channels on the IK hand turns green).

Has anyone got any work around for this? How could I keep the hand up on his ear while he's on the phone?
Thanks

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 6:04 pm
by Juzwa
Are you using constrain parent?

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2012 12:25 pm
by admin
You know about the w b c buttons? You can switch parent space.

Head space isn't an option but you could just reparent this node tgtArmIkChestLf to ctlHeadGimbal

then hit c

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2012 5:01 pm
by Juzwa
Sry, just saw your topics subject. For a moment i thought you used simple parent.

I had the same problem with Norman in 2012. Couldn't get it work, so switched to 2011 and everythink worked fine.

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 5:40 am
by IestynR
Hey Dave. I didn't know about those World, Body and Chest button, they are awesome! They've made the process a lot easier! Thank you kindly.

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 12:34 am
by bnason
Hey guys! For those of you that use malcolm, I have a question. I love how you can use the w, b, or c buttons to constrain the IK handle to different parts of the rig, but is there anyway to animate that constraint switch? I have my character resting her hand on her hip as she's talking and then she rests it on the table. So for the first part it being constrained to B is awesome, but I would like to switch it to W for the rest of the animation. Any help would be appreciated!

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:40 am
by admin
Hi! You can manually key the constraints on this node:
grp1ArmIkLf
bnason wrote:Hey guys! For those of you that use malcolm, I have a question. I love how you can use the w, b, or c buttons to constrain the IK handle to different parts of the rig, but is there anyway to animate that constraint switch? I have my character resting her hand on her hip as she's talking and then she rests it on the table. So for the first part it being constrained to B is awesome, but I would like to switch it to W for the rest of the animation. Any help would be appreciated!

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:07 pm
by bnason
That's amazing, thank you so much for the quick response!

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:56 am
by superfriendlysam
Hey,

I get a weird error when I try and parent constraint his Ik hand to a grip of a gun. I want the hand to follow the gun which is parent constrained to his right hand. I get weird results and this error every time I try to parent constrain it :S

// Warning: Cycle on 'blaster:blasterTop.rotateX' may not evaluate as expected. (Use 'cycleCheck -e off' to disable this warning.)

Any help would be very much appreciated :)

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 10:16 am
by superfriendlysam
Don't worry now ;D I've fixed it!

I just used the technique David said with the tgtArmIkChestLf parented under a different curve :) But I had to do it in the rig file!

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:59 pm
by admin
Excellent!

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Mon May 23, 2016 7:11 pm
by richardforero
Hello, i was trying to change the space like the admin mentioned. "Head space isn't an option but you could just reparent this node tgtArmIkChestLf to ctlHeadGimbal
", but I cant make it work, could you be more specific in how you have to change it in order to make it work?

thank you very much :D

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Tue May 24, 2016 1:21 pm
by admin
In order to reparent objects that are referenced in a scene, you have to do Reference Editor>File>Import Objects From Reference
richardforero wrote:Hello, i was trying to change the space like the admin mentioned. "Head space isn't an option but you could just reparent this node tgtArmIkChestLf to ctlHeadGimbal
", but I cant make it work, could you be more specific in how you have to change it in order to make it work?

thank you very much :D

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Tue May 24, 2016 5:43 pm
by richardforero
Thanks for your answer! Probably I didnt explain myself right. What Im trying to do is parent the hand to head, so when I move the head the Ik hand follows. I thought some how the c w b buttons, one of them lets say c for "chest" when I pressed instead to IK hand to be on chest space would be in Head space. that what I was trying to figure out. Probably this setup has to be done on the original file but no clue how to do it or simply add another "change"space for the head. I think you mentioned before but I dont understand how to do it.

Could you help me to understand please

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 12:12 pm
by admin
Hi. Do you know how to reparent objects?
You want to reparent
tgtArmIkChestLf to ctlHeadGimbal

then use the c for chest option

Or you can just use a parent constraint on the parent of the ikArm control.

richardforero wrote:Thanks for your answer! Probably I didnt explain myself right. What Im trying to do is parent the hand to head, so when I move the head the Ik hand follows. I thought some how the c w b buttons, one of them lets say c for "chest" when I pressed instead to IK hand to be on chest space would be in Head space. that what I was trying to figure out. Probably this setup has to be done on the original file but no clue how to do it or simply add another "change"space for the head. I think you mentioned before but I dont understand how to do it.

Could you help me to understand please

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 5:57 pm
by goodrrz1234

Re: Parent Constrain hand to head?

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2018 4:16 pm
by alohabb
Hi there - just found this post and was wondering if you can elaborate on how to manually key the constraints on the grp1ArmIkLf node to animate the switch between the w, b, and c buttons? Not sure which attributes to key to make the switches. Thank you!
admin wrote:Hi! You can manually key the constraints on this node:
grp1ArmIkLf
bnason wrote:Hey guys! For those of you that use malcolm, I have a question. I love how you can use the w, b, or c buttons to constrain the IK handle to different parts of the rig, but is there anyway to animate that constraint switch? I have my character resting her hand on her hip as she's talking and then she rests it on the table. So for the first part it being constrained to B is awesome, but I would like to switch it to W for the rest of the animation. Any help would be appreciated!