Convert Joints to Bones??

[daforum]

Is there a way to convert Joints to Bones, and still retain the positon/ rotation?

(and i don't mean switching from Joint to Z-axis in the Bone properties panel)

Thanks :)

[evenflcw]

Search the forum. Somebody wrote a script for that and wrote about it in the forums. Can't remember who exactly, but it wasn't one of the usual guys.

[RebelHill]

If you dont mean switching from joint to Z axis, then what exactly do you mean, cos thats what I would ordinarily consider switching between bones and joints to be.

[evenflcw]

The question wasnt posed to me (I think). But I'll give my answer anyway.

I'd summarize it as "One joint does not a bone make. (It takes two.)". Ie. to make a bone using joints, you need to create two joints with a direct relation (parent/child) and a bone will appear between them. Furthermore, this "faux bone" is associated with the second joint, at the tip, not the base. Because of this, if you simply switch bones to joints, the "faux bones" will be offset one step compared to the real bones. Names won't match to the body parts and you lose the last bone in each chain. So you need something to add joints and offsets everything, and vice versa in going the other direction.

This I believe was the raison d'être of the script(?)! I've never had this problem myself as I haven't needed to switch. As such I still haven't made up my mind whether this is the only way or if you could come better prepared if the situation should arise.

I wonder, was it maybe a leading question?

[daforum]

Was it the 'skelegons-to-joints" script from:
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88466

(I haven't tested the script yet if this is the one)

I was wondering if there was a way to simply make a bone chain from a joint set-up
ie: joints to bone chain(s) so the skeleton stays exactly the same

I'm trying to load bones into Modeler and when I do with the joint set-up all the bones come in, unattached, facing right, in the x axis

[RebelHill]

what you're missing is the most fundamental difference between bones and joints.

Joints are just simply "points"... none too disimilar to nulls in a way... the special thing about joints, is that when you have 2 of them in a parent>child hierarchy, a deformer is created between them.

With a Zbone, there's only the one point, and the deformer always exists along the points local Z axis, with its length determined by the rest length value.

Now if you make a joint hierarchy, and have each child joint moved only along the Zaxis of its parent (so X,Y remain at 0,0), then convert the chain between joints and bones, then they will be the same, same orientation, etc... you will of course have to adjust rest lengths to match the Z spacing between one bone and the next.

But create a joint hierarchy, and move the child joints off in X and Y... and what you've done is alter the direction of the deformer, but leaving the joint oriented differently, hence, switching to bones will leave the resulting bone oriented as per the joint, not the deformer.

Best way round this is to use the draw joints tool, which will automatically orient your joints for you... or even just use the draw bones tool and layout the initial chain with bones, then switch it back and forth to joints as you like.