Maya 2011 - Rigging Distortion Problem

[tayyki]

Hi all, I currently encountered 2 problems while tweaking my rig (more like I have a problem while the other one is more of a question) and it was frustrating as I am not able to find out what is the problem after searching thru the web.

Thus, I really hope I could need some help advices here. I will try my very best to phrase out my problems, in hopes you will be able to understand. Here goes:

1. Stretchy Leg Problem

I am using the nodes - namely DistanceBetween, Condition & MultiplyDivide, making all the inputs to be Y.

The problem I have is whenever I have stretch the legs to a limit distance (in whichever axis), the thigh joint/skinning will gets distorts in all direction.
I have sort of find a solution but it is not practical, being I have to move my poleVector to the opposite direction so that the distortion will ceased and revert to normal.

Personally I do not find this to be an ideal solution as I find that if say an animator is going to use my rig, this is a big hassle to 'play around' so as to get it normal.

As such, can anyone tells me how to settle this issue?

Image1

2. Rotating the Axis

I have imported 3dMax model, add in the joints, rig it etc.
But as it is not in a T-pose, when I start adding in the Controllers, the axis of the controller in accordance to the particular joint seems rather 'awkward' for it is not going into the flow of direction. Perhaps see the picture for better illustration.

I tried tweaking the axis of the controllers using F8 and the ?, but should I rotate the axis to the direction I had wanted there will always be the Rot.Y value of 28 deg present in the controller.
And if I freeze the controller, it gets rid of the 28 deg, but the axis will revert back to how it was in the first place.

So, is there a way to manipulate the controller in a certain direction and at the same time, there will be zero values in the rotational values in the channel box as well?

Image2


Big thanks in advance and I do really appreciate for any advices given.