3dsMax - Rigging deformities

[OrienLorica]

I'm currently rigging a character in 3dsmax. It's robotic in nature, so instead of using the bones system, I just parented each part of the body together, and used an HI chain to give it the right motion. The HI works perfectly, except for the fact that when I move the arm around, it will give a slight deformation to the shapes within, either stretching them or skewing them. Attached is one example of what would happen to the shoulder ball joint when the arm is moved around. Does anyone know how to fix this? It would be a great help!

Mike Mirandi

[Shuggie]

You probably did a non uniform scale on a section of your model, this can lead to strange scaling and skewing after you link the parts together. You need to unlink all parts, apply and collapse an xform modifier for each of the parts and then relink again, that will sort it out.

[OrienLorica]

Thanks, Shuggie...I tried what you suggested, but unfortunately, it did not work. However, I noticed when I unlinked the shoulders from the torso, they no longer skewed when they animated, but then they would no longer be parented to the body, and it wouldnt work as a full character rig. Any more suggestions from anyone?

[Shuggie]

You could link the torso to a dummy object and then the arm to the dummy.