Constraint Problem

# 1 24-04-2007 , 08:43 PM

Inspector Lee
Join Date: Feb 2005

Location: San Francisco

Posts: 22

I'm trying to make a character move his arm (which has an IK handle on it), grab a door handle and close the door. I parented a locator to the door handle, then I parent constrained the character's hand to the locator. The problem is that when I key the weight on the constraint to zero (before the character grabs the handle in the timeline) the constraint is still effecting the arm IK. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Last edited by inspector lee; 24-04-2007 at 11:07 PM.

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# 2 25-04-2007 , 05:36 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2005

Location: This Place

Posts: 220

well, first off.... you shouldn't have parent-constrained the hand to the locator. I think what's usually done is point-constrain a control (to which the ik handle is either a child of or constrained to) to a locator. Making the locator a child of the door is probably fine, although your animation might end up wierd (because effectively the door is pulling the charachter, and not the other way around). Oh, and if you use the menu, instead of the shelf button, you can have the constraint start with a value of 0, instead of 1.

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# 3 25-04-2007 , 06:37 PM

Inspector Lee
Join Date: Feb 2005

Location: San Francisco

Posts: 22

Xander, thanks for the reply. I have already done everything in your post-
Tried both "point" and "parent" constrain, and tried creating the constraint with a starting weight of zero, but it acts exactly the same. It is still clearly influencing the arm/hand even though the weight is set to zero.
And yes the constraint is to a control object rather than directly to the ikHandle (this is a pretty standard rig).

Can you think of anything else I may have done wrong?

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# 4 25-04-2007 , 06:54 PM

Inspector Lee
Join Date: Feb 2005

Location: San Francisco

Posts: 22

Oh duh, I figured out the problem. I was keying something else (not the weight) What exactly does "WO" stand for in the channel box under a constraint? And what does the 1 value after it signify?
The odd thing is that, when I create a constraint and set the weight to zero in the options box, the constraint is still created with a starting weight of 1?
Don't know why that is...
Anyway, thanks Xander for help. Turned out it was just my ignorance! (as usual)

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