Bone Animation. Transform Problems.

[Sanada]

I'm having problems with getting bones to transform when attached to a parent bone. You can rotate bones freely but you can't move them as their movement is constrained by the parent bone. I'm doing this in 3dsmax.

So for example, I have two bones (bone1 and bone2). bone2 is attached to bone1 so if bone1 moves or rotates bone2 does along with it. Both bones are at 0,0,0. I want to move bone2 50 units along the X axis but can't because bone1 is restricting it's movement. How can I move bone2 without bone1 restricting its movement? I hope I explained it well enough.

I know you can do this because I've done it before but can't remember how I did it.

 

[clarky003]

Don't link it to the parent bone for that specific animation, then you can move it freely. Aslong as you export your reference with the desired linked bone hierarchy of your object/character it will recognise the parenting within the engine anyway. Assuming this is for a game model then that is the easiest way to do it.

 

[Stormy]

When you create bones they have a parent to child hiracy by default. You will need to either select the child and remove the link or create two seperate bones.

 

[Sanada]

If I don't link the bones though it'll be very tedious to animate bones that are attached to bones that rotate in an animation sequence. Dam, I know you can do it because I've done it before but can't remember how. So frustrating. I made the last animation in an older version of max so maybe that has something to do with it. :\

EDIT: I tried what you suggested (animate then re-link) but when I play the animation in HLMV it doesn't play correctly and the bone doesn't move in the direction I want it to because the parent bone is restricting it's movement.