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484 Chapter 12: Animation
down the chain. Setting joint limits on individual
child objects can influence this inheritance. If
three children in a row all have their rotational
axes made inactive, they will not be able to rotate,
and so a piece of the chain will appear stiff. Or if
only one axis is made active as a sliding joint, the
component can separate in space from the chain.
When y ou are using an object with a path
constraint in an IK chain you might want the path
to appear as if it is part of the IK chain. You achieve
this effect by lin king t he object us ing the path
constraint and the path to the same parent. The
path object should have no children, and other
objects in the IK chain should be linked to the
object using the path constraint.
1. Base
2. Post
3. Cap
4. Ring
5. Holder
6. Handle
In the figure, the bead uses a path constraint to
holdittothering.TheIKchainfromparentto
child is Post->Cap->Bead->Handle. The ring is a
childoftheCapbutisnotpartoftheIKchain.
Copy ing and Pa sti ng J oint Pa r ameter s
You c an copy and paste at the b ottom of the Object
Parameters rollout in t he Hierarchy panel to copy
and p aste a complete set of joint parameters f rom
one object to another.
There are separate copy and paste funct ions for
sliding joints and rotational joints. Each join t type
saves copied parameters in separate clipboards.
Tip: Choose one of the Mirror Paste options if you
want to mirror the joint parameter settings as you