i have a model that i want to rig or get rigged that i want to offer as a freebie but i suck in poser and rigging it has proven beyond my talents so i was hoping someone could help me figure out what im doing wrong or if its just not possible

the item is a hydraulic engine lift for working on cars it has 2 parts that have 2 points of control

1 is a pivot point and the other is a connecting pin to keep it in place

also i have a hydraulic floor jack that needs the same basic rigging so learning this would make 2 models availible for people who need them

any assistance would be appreciated

you can either send me the model for rigging , or I can step you through it an easy way.

One easy way is to seperate your ibj file into parts. so base, pivot, arm1, arm2, cyl2 and cyl 1.

Import them all to Poser and use hierarchy editor to arrange as

1. Base

        2. cyl1

        2. arm1

              3. Cyl2

              3 arm2

Then use the button near the bottom to create a figure.

Then load the figure and using the joint editor set the center (pivot point) for each part

You need a script to unhide the x,y,z tran dials or just edit the cr2.

final step is to set cyl 1 and cyl 2 to point at each other so they make a working hydraulic ram.

If you want me to rig it send it to marks542004@yahoo.com with renderosity in the subject (or it goes to my spam folder)

honestly what you have typed is like reading russian to me

i know nothing about using poser and even less about cr2 files

in blender i can do almost anything under the sun but in poser im lost, i ahve the .obj to .pp2 tutorial from music2u4u and even he tried to rig it but couldnt

im trying to release freebies that arent out there yet that i have seen people ask about but not being able to rig hinders that

im learning but jumping in that pool for now is way overload with the holidays and work so id like to take you up on your offer if its not an imposition

i have some other meshes im working on that i would be willing to give you copies of for your help if you are into motorcycles i hve the pan head and 100" evo motors made and almost ready for the world as well as several models of springer and girder style front ends

let me get the files re-rared and ill email them out  my email is blender_3d_lover@yahoo.com

so that you can find it easier

I have helped others rig their models so its not a imposition. Its easier if you can see the original obj and how it is grouped for poser. 

I should have time to get your stuff done sunday, if it doesnt need alterations to the mesh.

just a point but dont put your email in the forums unless you like spam emails. The email I posted is not my main email.

i have different email addresses for different thing and know better than to use aprimary account for public use so i wasnt worried about it

the mesh should be solid as is i spent enough time making sure that all normals are facing out and it was mainly modeled in quads   scale might be big becase i dont normaly model for anything except myself and blender, the rar file has every single individual part and totals about 30  i thing some are duplicates because i had part of it flipped and had to fix the issue

and trust me there is no major hurry ive been working on these for a month and thought about releasing them for christmas or even later but ran into a wall

i would love to find a good tutorial on how it is done so that i can do the next ones myself but so far no luck

and as i said i have an unrigged springer front end ready to release to the public but the frame is still being modeled and might take a few more days

if you need a mesh made maybe i can do a bit to help you for helping me  i will say if i cannot do it openly because even the best cant do some things and i am far from the best but i know that every problem can be solved

Could you show us a picture of your hydraulic engine lift, and if possible, with some indication of which parts need to move?

You say your hydraulic engine lift has two parts, but the hydraulic ram alone would require at least two moving parts (cylinder and piston). Then presumably there is a base and lifting arm, not to mention a hook and wheels. At least those are the sort of engine lifts I am familiar with, and what you will see if you Google "hydraulic engine lift".

I'm not intending to be critical here, just trying to understand how your engine lift is supposed to work, and wondering if it has enough parts to actually work.

@ les , yup, I will be curious to see the obj file.  I would be surprised if the hydraulic piston  and the extendable arm are modelled properly, but I could be wrong.

I dont tend to make wheels movable on a freebie unless I have nothing else to do.

I have not received the obj file yet.

the cylinder and the ram are seperate as is the extending arm

like i said its 30 parts altogether but the 2 sticky poins are what are driving me nuts

 i tried to resend the file so if it will not go through again ill just upload the file here

heres a fast render of the model for reference

It looks very good unbroken-fighter! Markschum has already offered to rig it, I would accept that offer if I were you, but I will make you a different offer.

These hydraulic ram type questions keep popping up from time to time. I would like to do a comprehensive  freebie tutorial on this, but it's hard to explain things properly without actual example geometry, so that it can be done as a hands on exercise. I suck at modelling, and it would take me longer than I'm willing to invest to come up with my own mesh.

If you will let me distribute your geometry with a tutorial. Then I will write a tutorial on how to rig it. You would of course get prominent credit in the tutorial as the author of the mesh, and I could include any licence conditions that you may want to have. I'd post the tutorial here at Rosity, and at sharecg, and anywhere else that you may like to suggest.

The tutorial itself would probably be in PDF format, with some illustrations where appropriate. It would be put in a zip together with the obj file. It might take a few weeks to get it into a final polished form. I could send you draft copies, and you could point out any parts that need clarification.

Think about it. I will send you my email address in an internal message.

a tutorial on this would be perfect and would benefit me as well as the whole of the poser learners so ill have no issues with it being redistributed

i model exclusively in blender because its easy to me and sometimes it doesnt scale over perfectly

let me recheck the message and ill email that file in rar form to you so you can do what you do

all im realy knowledgeble at the modeling aspect of it all because my software of choice seems to be obscure and unliked by most

and as i said to markschum i have other models that i want to put out some will eventualy be paid items and some will be limited and personalized that are very limited in numbers that i am willing to offer in trade for the assistance since for right now i am broke

i mainly do car parts and motorcycles but i cannot make clothes

i have uploaded it onsite temporarily because emails do not seem to be working properly

the whole mesh was about 3 hours in the making but only because i knew what i wanted to make and even at that its not a simple machine

and i opted for the poser forum because i knew that good people were around for assistance and you have not failed to show why faith in others is warranted   so thank you all for the help

1. its a great model , nicely made , with complete parts, holes etc.

2.for Poser , in my opinion thats overkill. Unless it can be dismantled, may models for poser dont model the bilt , or the bilt hole, but rather model a bolt head, and nut only. 

1. again in my opinion , there are parts that dont need to be parts, but rather you need parts with multiple material groups.

     example: the pump handle and grip are seperate obj files. They could be one obj with two materials.  alos the vaious axles and pivot pins could be a material on the main part, so lift arm, lift arm pin could be one obj and so on.

1. The cylinder, ram and lift arm all have problems in poser, they balloon badly. I can explain that later. Turning smoothing off has fixed it, or most of it. 

2. The figure wound up with one major material, so I changed the material name for each part from Material to Part-name. This means you may have several things that all would be metal but we can address that later too.

3. I need to either extract the geom from the cr2, it all got created as geomcustom and embedded, or just export the obj file. 

4. I am planning on doing the chain as a seperate figure.

At this early stage its looking good, I have it rigged but there are a few things that need tweaking.

Problems to solve:

Only 1 that I may need to discuss with Les and thats the setup of the cylinderr and ram. I tried point at , and they point off in odd directions. I dont see an endpoint for either part but that may be how I set up the heirarchy, and there are some changes or regroupings needed I think.

I will continue with it later tonight.

The attached pic is showing its present state as a figure, with some materials set.

i have always over modeled my meshes and because blender doesnt relate well to other programs i have issues with exporting things to them so the little things get lost

if anything needs to be made let me know i can make it happen fast

I finally got round to looking at the geometry. Here are my initial thoughts.

On the mesh itself: The tall arm of the frame seems to have some unnecessary polygons. The front wheels would have been better with a denser mesh, as they show fairly obvious flats. The jacking arm does not seem to be positioned correctly.

On the geometry groups: As markschum points out some of the parts  could have been merged, with only material zones used to differentiate between different materials. In general, any part that needs to move MUST be a separate group (or obj with its own unique group name), and any parts that move together as a unit should usually be one geometry group (or obj with one group), with different materials within the group having different material zones. In general the grouping and naming of the groups is very good. Perhaps you could have used capitalization to make the names easier to read "linkarmbottompin" vs "linkArmBottomPin", but this is a very minor point. More annoying is the "new" prefix added to many names. If there is an old part, back it up and remove it, and then remove the prefix from the new part.

All in all the above criticisms are fairly minor points. There is nothing that absolutely must be changed, except the location of the jack handle and jack handle grip.

On the material zones ('usemtl' in the obj): In my view you need four materials (you could have more, but I think four is enough). These could be named (for example) "steel", "paint", "wheel", and "handle". Every part of the geometry should be assigned to one of those material zones.

At a quick look I can find two materials in the engine lift "(null)" and "Material". This does not matter much at the moment when everything is separate obj files, but it will matter a great deal when everything is converted to a figure with one obj file. I think this is the biggest problem with the engine lift at the moment, as it is likely to take the most work to fix.

In spite of what looks like a lot of criticism above, this is really a very nice model, and generally well made. I have seen many models that were complete train wrecks in comparison, and that I would not have tried to rig for a million quid. I think your model should be relatively easy to turn into a working figure.

Things that I suggest you do:

1). Remove any old parts that are no longer needed, eg the (old) 'jackhandle' and (old) 'jackhandlegrip'.

1. (Optional) Rename the geometry groups to remove the prefix "new", and resave the obj files without "new" in the names.

3). Rename the material zones so that each part of the engine lift geometry is assigned to one of the four following material zones, "steel", "paint", "wheel", "handle" (use different names if you prefer).

P.S.

You might want to group the back wheels and casters so that in total they consist of four groups, so that they can move in a realistic way, eg:

rCasterWheel
lCasterWheel
rCaster
lCaster

The way the grouping is set up at the moment, the casters can't turn on the yAxis. It's up to you. If you are happy with the casters always pointing in the same direction, leave them as they are. Or you could make a slight compromise and do it as two groups "rWheel&Caster" and "lWheel&Caster". That way the wheels won't spin on their xAxis, but that would only be obvious in an animation with a tight close up on the wheels, and the casters could still be pointed in any direction.

@les,

I have assigned a different material to each part, and those can be merged as needed in the cr2 (embedded geom)

I may combine a few of the parts, just to make the parts list smaller. I dont like unmovable body parts, and there does not seem to be any point to moving the lift arm pin for example.

What did you find about the jack handle ?  Its seperate from the jack , so could be made as a removable prop. It moves with the cylinder , but short of putting it on the main frame and modelling a hose  what to do. In the image it does look a bit thin. 

@ unbroken fighter

If the mesh had been bad , I wouldnt have posted here, I would send you an email of what I thought needed fixing.  As Les said nothing I found is a major problem , and nothing was unexpected.  There are a few documents that I will send you on specific problems with obj files in Poser that you might find helpful. 

 I have not looked to see if the thing is uv mapped.

I will fix the body part names in the cr2 just to make them a bit more user friendly.

I did find one part that seemed to be a duplicate, but I might not be seeing it correctly, and I may have imported it twice. It was the link-arm 

@markschum,

My previous post was aimed at unbroken-fighter (I should have made that clear), with a view to him eventually rigging the hoist, or similar models, himself, and explaining what is needed in a geometry before it can be used in a figure.

Re the position of the jacking arm. Sorry, it might be in the correct place. I think I failed to load one part. Is there something missing here (see image above), and if so, what is the missing obj called?

the missing part is labled as hydraulic lever

i just noticed thart there are some reversed norma;s that i am correcting now that are casing things to look funky

so far i havent doe the uvmapping because i wasnt sure if anyone would need them but i can have them done tonight if i need to

the jack handle is removeable  amd the link arm is 2 peices that are normaly welded together

and as for making the files poser ready that is one of the big issues i have with not actualy knowing poser 

i did remove the unneeded parts before i zipped it i thought but forgot to renme the parts  if need be i can rename parts and add the maps but as for the materials they still dont transfer from blender to any software

Quote - the missing part is labled as hydraulic lever

Ah, now it makes more sense.

Quote - i did remove the unneeded parts before i zipped it i thought but forgot to renme the parts

I got two versions of the jackhandle and grip, one pointing forwards and one pointing back, but perhaps that's intended? I don't seem to have a duplicate of the link-arm that markschum mentioned, and the link-arm I have is all one group (as it probably should be).

Quote - and as for making the files poser ready that is one of the big issues i have with not actualy knowing poser... as for the materials they still dont transfer from blender to any software

It's not the Blender materials themselves that are a problem, it's the material zones in the obj files. An obj has one or more material zones that tell Poser what materials are to be applied to what parts of the mesh. In the obj file itself the zones are in 'usemtl' blocks. If you import 10 obj files all with a material zone (usemtl) named "(null)", each obj can use a different material (eg colour, texture map, etc). A figure is different, if 10 of its parts each use a material zone named "(null)", than all those parts will have exactly the same material, eg be the same colour, etc. In your engine lift, both the wheels and the metal bits use a material named "(null)", which would mean they would both have the same colour, etc.

Ok, hello again all.

I am going to request that unbroken have another look at his obj files , and try to fix the materials as discussed and perhaps group some of the parts.

for a simple prop the main frame, front wheels, axles, castors and castor wheels could all be one part with different materials.  The castors for example are two castors in one obj file and so cannot be rigged without splitting into two obj files.  (or parts)

The reason I am making this request is the front wheels. When I look closely in Poser they have some normals facing in and some out. Poser makes this look broken.  I can't find a fix that doesnt involve changing them in modeller.  I have not checked other parts.

Let me know if thats acceptable. If not I will continue with what I have.

ive got the file open now and am referencing here to know what to fix as i go

ive fixed the issues with the wheels and have grouped eveyting into 4 main materials groups  painted, galvanizes, stainless, and cast

as im working through the various pieces fixing normals i am checking the mesh and making parts into a single object that connect to eachother and do not move

i should have the new file ready sometime tonight withthe uv maps added

Keep up the good work!

Let us know if thare are any points that you are not clear on.

I decided to go ahead and start rigging the model, even though the geometry is still in a state of flux. I'm hoping that the modified geometry can be inserted into my version of the rig without too much trouble. I thought I would post this small animation to give you a bit of encouragement as you work on the geometry. All the motion you see in the animation is controlled via one dial, xRotate in the LiftArm actor.

The rig is far from finished at the moment, but as you can see, the hydraulic ram part is now working as it's supposed to.

I hope I'm not stepping on markschum's toes here, but I thought that two versions might be better than one. At the moment my version of the "figure" is just a collection of individual props parented together, with a long way to go before it is a finished figure.

im still working on the files now and have all but 2 of the maps done and saved to help people get it looking better than just like its freshly painted

i need to go back and rewatch a grouping tut to get it done better than it was but then again im still waiting on a call about an engine for my wifes car so ill be up for a bit and ill keep plugging

when i made the mesh i wasnt even thinking about rigging it and never even thought about making it poser ready so i used all blender internal names and now im fixing it so next time i will know to do everything as if i was goingto offer it publicly

if you have any other points of need please let me know

Personally I think I favour keeping the hook and links as separate parts, so that they can all be articulated, but that does add quite a bit of work to the rigging. The subject of rigging chains is quite an interesting and complex one. There are two was to do it, a realistic way, or a fudge.

The complexity derives from this fact, an actor normally only has one fixed pivot point, but when the link rotates on the xAxis the ideal location for the pivot is in one place, and when it rotates on the zAxis the ideal place for the pivot is at a different place. It takes a bit of fancy footwork to make the pivot point change depending on which way the link is rotating. On the other hand if the links only need to rotate a little bit, you can get away with the fudge of placing the pivot half way between the two ideal points.

Sorry for the burst of technical diarrhoea. I got quite involved with rigging chains a few years ago. I just hope I can still remember some of it now.

@unbroken,

The advice to merge all the parts that move as one  unit into one group/obj, is good advice. However I'm going to ask you to make an exception (if it's not too late). Please keep the 'linkarmtoppin' as a seperate obj.

The reason I'm asking this is because I want to use the linkarmtoppin as a Point At target for the linkarm. If the linkarmtoppin were to be merged into some other obj, I would have to create a ghost actor to sit in the same place, as I need something in that position to make the linkarm-hydrauliclever-plunger assembly work correctly. Don't worry if the foregoing doesn't make sense to you, it should become clear at a later stage.

If it's to late, and you have already merged it, don't worry, I can work around it. It would just make for a technically neater cr2 if it were left as a separate obj.

i havent merged parts yet that arent static

even the wheels and caster assemblies are still seperated because i am debating to make the individaul or just static

what is the mainframe group are the main frame and front wheel pins, and the cylinder pin and linkarmbottompin

i can easily modify everything per need

but i have to say that i will not finnish it tonight   i got the call i was fearing and im not in a good mood

so keep the ideas coming if you wish and i will pick it up after i dont sleep

sorry guys but knowing that i have to spend the cash on a new car for my wife has taken the will away for tonight and i need sleep

Quote - but i have to say that i will not finnish it tonight   i got the call i was fearing and im not in a good mood

Sorry to hear about the car. Take your time there is no need to rush.

At the moment I'm still scratching my head over how to make the linkarm-hydrauliclever-plunger assembly work correctly. I thought I had figured out a way to do it, but not so. There seems to be a quite complex (for me anyway) dynamic relationship between the movement of the parts. It doesn't look that hard until you actually have to do it, then its a brain teaser. The new operator 'valueOpKey' (Dependant Parameter stuff) may offer one solution, but I would rather find a way that is compatible with P6 or earlier, if I can.

Any idea what the extent of rotation in degrees should be for the hydrauliclever/jackarm?

I have it set to plus or minus 30 at the moment.

I have done a demo rig of the thing , file attached.

This simply shows the rough rigging and what moves where.

I have somehow buggered the center for the figure overall. 

ok finaly home and ill start working on the file and see what i get done and let everyone know how far it goes

ok almost done with the grouping and mapping projects

its now in 15 total peices because most renders will not need the wheels to move and will be hidden in the render normaly

the chain and hook are still individual parts for rigging and ive enen pulled most of it into poser 7 pro just to see if it was in the groups with the materials groups that are assigned and they are

now just to get the mapping done and zip it up to send out tonight

Some parts of the geometry have been changed. the chani links are now all one actor part (actor). The jack handle and grip are one part, and it has been left as a prop. The t pin is also a prop. The LinkArm has been modified by moving it out to the side slightly, as it seemed to be in the wrong place. An actor named "ChainTarget" was added, it is parented to the frame and placed well below the ground to act as a 'Point At' target for the chain. If you want to pose the chain manually, you will need to set its Point At dial to zero. Another new actor is "LinkArmTarget", part of a failed experiment that I have not gotten round to removing.

Most of the moving parts have been hidden from the menus, that was because it is easy to inadvertently drag things out of place via the mouse with this sort of figure. You can activate the Parameters/Properties palette for any part by selecting the part in the Hierarchy Editor. The movements 'Arm Up-Down, 'Arm In-Out' and 'Pump' (the handle), can all be performed via dials in the body actor.

The obj lives in the same folder as the cr2. Smoothing has been turned off for all actors. It is of course still using the original geometry you sent me, except for a few modifications by me. A lot of the pins and stuff should probably be merged with other actors, but I didn't get round to that. I think it should work in any version from P5 up, but only tested in PP2012. The motion of LinkArm arm is not as good as I would have liked, but I think it will do. There is probably more stuff I should tell you about it, but that's all I can think of at the moment.

If you have changed the geometry, I'll have a look at it, and see how easy or hard it would be to insert it into my version of the rig. I may at sometime get round to rigging posable links for the chain, then again I might not, as it would be quite a bit of work to do it well.

Looking forward to hearing any thoughts on it, including criticisms.

:scared: Oh my God it's HUGE! Shit, bugger, damn blast!!!

I never thought to check the scale. LAUGHS WEEPS

I did not realize until just now when I loaded markschum's cr2 into the same scene.

Oh well, it should still work OK if you scale the BODY actor down.

:blink:  thats big alright. I scaled my first attempt to 30%

If you want a laugh ( I have an odd sense of humor) the mesh in freestuff appears to have been downloaded 180 times :woot:

I like your solution to the chain.

yeah i have a habit of forgetting to scale to 50% before exporting

and yes it was already downloaded 180+ times and has shown up on 2 other sites with someone elses name claiming to have made it

im not changing the actual mesh so there shouldnt be an issue there im just grouping parts and making the groups as assemblies with the attatched parts that dont need to be rigged

for the finnished version i will rescale it to 25% before exporting, i model in huge scale so that i can see even the smallest details and get them right so that even small it looks good

im still doing the mapping and am now debating if they are needed but ill keep on them until i decide either way

and im going to delete whats already here because 180 downloads is just too funny

I would map the main frame , and the two arms and maybe the cylinder and ram. The parts that would show a lot of wear and crease. Its easy enough to rescale the geometry in poser, and a lot of freebies have odd scales to them. If you work in real world units in the modeller its much easier to set sizes, but it will be very big in Poser. You are doing really well and should not need much help with future projects. You might consider doing something for sale in the store.

i started with this model as the learning steps to me learning in poser because i knew it would be difficult and i know that if i can do it i can do almost anything

and for now the only time i sell models is when clients call me and request something

like the lift was used originaly for an assembly video for the manufacturer  and they paid me with a new engine lift but i do have a few things im working on that i was thinking about selling

and if i only map the moving parts then for the most part im done i need to fix 1 little thing but that will take a few minutes and then ill zip it all up and send it out

just checking in to see if you got the email

oh well ill be working for the night on a new model

I have the files and will have time this weekend to work on it.

The demands of the silly season kept me from doing any work on the figure until today. I have attached a new version above. It has been tested in P6, P8, and PP2012. I have to admit that the the two fixes I implemented were a bit of a kludge, but at least it seems to be working as desired. I will say more about the fixes later. Note that the figure is still using the original geometry (with a few modifications).

There are still a few changes I would like to make, including using your new geometry, but it now seems to be a working figure.

Thanks Les,

I had to leave the figure over christmas with other commitments and then found my Poser 7 seems to be doing very odd things. I had a virus given to me with some software for christmas and am looking at wiping my disk and reloading everything. 

I had rigged the new geometry but the main cylinder didnt have an endpoint in P7 although it did in the cr2  so point at wasnt working and everytime I loaded the rigged figure my Poser 7 would terminate.

I will get back to it but it might be a week or more.

regards and merry christmas and new year.

i started atching some tutorials on rigging but they all assume that the follower has some level of familiarity with poser which i do not

i have gotten better about the grouping and im figuring out that i can make an effective mesh with a lower poly count

im not in a hurry for a working version because its mainly going to be a learning tool for me and since there isnt a huge competition out there making the same model it can wait

now for the question how would i open the attatched file in poser 7?

Quote - now for the question how would i open the attached file in poser 7?

The attached file is really a zip, but in order to attach it here, I had to add ".TXT" to the end of the name. So the first thing you need to do is to loose the ".TXT" from the end of the file name. The zip contains the correct Runtime structure. So if you extract the zip to your 'Poser 7' folder the files should end up in the correct places. Or if you use a different Runtime, extract  it to whatever folder contains the Runtime you want to install it to.

The figure will be placed in the path:

[the folder you extract to, eg Poser 7]RuntimelibrariesCharacterunbroken-fighterEngineLift-007.cr2

The obj will be placed in the path:

[the folder you extract to, eg Poser 7]RuntimeGeometriesunbroken-fighterEngineLift-001.obj

In the Poser interface, you will find the figure under; Figures > unbroken-fighter. If Poser is open when you install, you may need to refresh the library by what ever means is appropriate to P7, or just restart Poser.

Note that most of the things you will need to do with the figure can be done via dials in the Body actor.

Quote - I had rigged the new geometry but the main cylinder didnt have an endpoint in P7

markschum, I had forgotten about the missing endPoint thing. That makes it really hard to do Point At stuff. PP2012 (and presumably P9) shows the endpoint for all actors in the Joint Editor, which is really nice.

is the end point something that i could fix in blender or is it a poser thing?

and les i got the file to open in poser and happened to notice a missing part and still am having trouble getting it extract to the runtime folder

i need to find poser for idiots tutorials

The cr2 shovalue of the endpoint , but the joint editor does not allow it to be changed , or show it for that matter. Since this is the first time I have seen this happen I assume its a bug , or something wrong with my copy of Poser 7.

The poser manual is available as a pdf file in the program folder , or off the Help menu in Poser. Its worth a look for basic concepts.

so what is the newest version of poser and the most stable

if im going to spend the investment i want the best

what do you have now ?

@unbroken,

Quote - is the end point something that i could fix in blender or is it a poser thing?

Its a Poser thing, Blender won't help here.

Quote - and les i got the file to open in poser and happened to notice a missing part and still am having trouble getting it extract to the runtime folder

Which part is missing? I'm not sure what else I can tell you about extracting the zip. Perhaps markschum could check it to make sure I did not make a mistake woth it, but I think it is OK, and should install like any other ziped Poser content.

@markschum,

Quote - Since this is the first time I have seen this happen I assume its a bug , or something wrong with my copy of Poser 7.

I think this is a normal "feature" of versions prior to P9, it's the same in my copies of P6 and P8. I don't fully understand why some endpoints get displayed and others don't. I had a theory that it was only terminal parts, those with no children, that display the endpoint, but hands and feet get endpoints, and they are not terminal (fingers and toes are), so that tends to blow that theory away.

In the Engine Hoist, in P6, I get endpoints for things like the hook, t-handle, ram, and pins, all of which are terminal parts, but not for things like the cylinder, liftarm, and hoist arm, which are not terminal parts. Perhaps hands and feet get them because they are IK goals, or perhaps it's hard coded for hands and feet???