Hi, I wonder if anyone could help here. I've been working on some animations for an online game which involves a Cricket player creating a number of different shots. (This could also apply to a Baseball player too, also each shot is 24frames from start to finish). I have had no end of problems trying to get both hands to stay together on the bat handle. The bat has been parented to the right hand but left hand has to been moved manually. The other consideration is that the figure is custom made with the restrictions of being less than 2000 polygons, although the JPs are actually based around a standard Poser 5 figure. The end animation is then exported as a series of OBJ files to be used in a custom made games engine. So my question is whether you can in some way get both hand to stay parented together, or could it be possible to build a figure that has both hands welded together yet still have all the other joints and bones in place? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

You could a) also parent the left hand to the bat b) make the animation in stages, which might be easier at positioning the hands but without having to manually change position every frame c) if you're happy with the parameters of the hands in the first frame, you could just delete the keyframes for those body parts in the rest of the animation (this last one might not be suitable, it depends on your animation)

Message edited on: 07/29/2005 06:45

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2225846

I got the perfect solution to 2-hand sword parenting for PPP from lesbentley in message #10 of the thread at the above link. The instructions here should work for any required 2-handed grip on any cylinder, handle, or pole: "Position the sword, position the hands on the sword. Parent the sword to one hand, (say the right). At this stage you might like to resave the sword as a smart prop, so it will always load in the same position relitive to the hand. You might also like to save a pose for the figure at this stage. Now turn on IK for the other (left) arm, select the left hand and from the Objct menu (or in Hierachie Editor) set the parent of the hand to be the sword. The sword will move when its parent, the right hand moves, the left hand will move when its inkeyParent the sword moves. In standard figures only the hands and feet can be parented to a prop in this way." additional instructions from the same thread from les: "An alternative to the method in post #10, to parent the sword to the chest (so that the sword will move with the figure), turn on IK (from the menu bar; Figure > Use Inverse Kinematics) for both arms, and parent both hands to the sword. In this case both hands will follow movements of the sword. Turning IK (Inverse Kinematics) on, allows a special type of parenting for the hands and feet, they can be parented to a prop or some body part of the same or a diffrent figure. Internally to the figure/cr2 this is an 'inkeyParent' and does not affect the normal parenting relationship between the hand and forearm, which will follow the movement of the hand. The 2 methods, this post and post #10, should work in P4, PP, P5, P6, and perhapd other versions." I hope this works for you in an animation project, im pretty confidant it should :) Logan

Thanks Logan for this I will give it a go tomorrow now, but it looks very promising that this solution will work. Have a good weekend, Steve

Bookmark... Yet another fantastic idea....