Cannot temporarily deactivate chain up vector constraints

You cannot seem to deactivate chain upvector constraints and key it such that the constraint is not active for parts of your animation.

Cause There is no boolean 'active' or 'mute' parameter as found in the property pages of other types of constraints, deforms etc.

Solution

There are two ways to animate the activeness of a chain upvector constraint:

Select the first bone of the hierarchy and in the explorer, browse to kinematic joint > resolution plane. Key the resolution plane option to either, upvector (to activate) and default (to deactivate).

The second method may take a bit longer to setup but may be easier to implement while animating in the mixer.

After the upvector constraint is applied on the chain, browse to kinematic joint> resolution plane. Set the resolution plane to default and set a keyframe. Now mark the resolution plane (click on the text which will turn yellow when marked) option and store > marked parameters-fcurves to store an action clip. Now set the resolution plane back to upvector and set a key. Open the animation mixer and instantiate the stored action whenever you want to deactivate the chain upvector constraint.

Applies To: XSI 1.5 on NT,Win2K,Irix

Posted: 8/16/2001

This page was last modified 18:12, 22 Nov 2005.

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