Heirarchy problem.

[Retrocide]

Well I am trying to make a bolt action gun, specificaly a paintball gun. Now I have several bones that will be used in what I'm working with and only 2 need to be animated within the gun. They are Trigger, MuzzleA0, Handle, Handle2, Hopper, CObottle, Barrel, and Bolt. The trigger and bolt need to be moved and while the trigger is doing what I want the bolt isn't. "Handle" is the root of the Heirarchy (Where your player hand will actually press to shoot.) and I'm trying to get the bolt to slide only amongst the X-axis except when I link it to the handle it will not move by itself without moving the rest of the gun. My question is how can I have the root bone move the entire gun and bolt with having the bolt being able to move by itself. Heres a picture of whats going on. http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/1160/gunref1vg.jpg

 

[crackhead]

i dont understand the problem.

 

[Retrocide]

I'll try to simplify it. The bolt bone of the gun which is suppose to slide in the X-axis and is not connected wiht the rest of the heirarchal structure. I need to know of a way of connecting it to the handle bone of the gun, however when I link the bolt bone to the handle bone, when moving the bolt bone it moves the rest of the gun. Now I want to connect this bone to the handle bone while still being able to move the bolt bone with out it moving others.

 

[crackhead]

oh i see well how are you connecting it to the rest of the gun

 

[Retrocide]

Heres everything that I have so far http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/3310/gunref4nn.jpg . I'm kind of thinking of using another 3D application to do the bone settings, Maya possibly ( Becuase XSI blows.)

 

[crackhead]

nah man xsi is the best. in xsi to fix this i would suggest merging the handle and the bolt and then selecting the bolt vertices and enveloping them to a bone. and the handle to a seperate one. that would solve it i dont know anything about 3ds max though if thats what youve made it in.

 

[Retrocide]

Are there any 3DS user who can solve this problem? It is really important and I'm running into brick walls.

 

[crackhead]

can u not use my technique in 3dsmax merging the hand and the bolt to one mesh and then attaching them to different bones so that when u move the bone thats attached to the bolt then it only moves the bolt?

 

[Retrocide]

Doesn't work that way, becuase then they will just be consider one bone. It will then be consider a main bone with both of them together and they will move together still.

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

ummm cant u just merge everything that doesnt move into one object so that it moves togethor and leave the trigger and bolt as seperate objects? what i mean by merge is to connect them by creating polygons or welding vertexes.

 

[mindless_moder]

do cnstraints export into hl2 ? if they do then use an attachment constraint.

 

[Retrocide]

Just for it to move together it doesnt require it to be one mesh, if I did that then those bones that are one will only serve one purpose. As for the constraints thats something I have not tried and if I'm correct they would work.

Update: It works! Thankyou so much for suggesting constraints.

 

[crackhead]

see with xsi you would never have had this problem in the first place. good ol xsi

 

[Retrocide]

The interface in XSI sucks, I cant find anything, and you need a tool for every freaking thing you do, 3DS doesnt do that to me and is why I perfer it. Only reason I have not figured this earlier is because I have recently learned about this.

 

[mindless_moder]

that will be 10$ all proceeds will go to the help mindless_moder buy hl2 foundation

 

[crackhead]

lol all the tools u need can be accessed by the press of a butten like u for selecting faces or i for raycast edge mode.