Transform Problem

[dsommers]

After enveloping a character I was about to use the shape manager to create some facial expressions when I noticed that as I attemted to translate a point along the y axis it caused my point to move along the x axis and sliding z axis on manipulator caused point to move along y. Help...what happened? How can I correct this problem without messing up my envelope.

[dsommers]

Zeroing out the transforms and freezing the model fixed the transfom problem but now I see when I take it into the Shape Manager that my whole rig has jumped above the model. I'm sure there must be a simple solution, I'm just having difficulty finding it at this point. Help, anyone?

[dsommers]

I closed the scene and opened it again and this time the rig in the shape manager has rotated to the character's left. I discovered that applying mute to the envelope caused the poly mesh to rotate. I haven't discovered the answer yet in the tutorials, but I'm guessing it has something to do with freezing the model?????

[3DMastermind]

Never envelope without freezing the object's transforms.
Since you hit froze the transforms after the envelope.
The deformers' "static kinestate" have to be adjusted to the new pose.

You need to use Envelope>"Set Reference Poses" here.
To het the hang of it. Try it with a sphere weighted to a 2 bone chain first.
Here is some info from the guides (F1):

1. Select the envelope.
2. If desired, mute the envelope deformation. This temporarily prevents the deformation of the envelope and gives better visual feedback. To do this, do one of the following:
- In an explorer, right-click the Envelope Operator and activate Mute.
or
- On the Select panel, choose Selection and click the icon of the Envelope Operator to open its property editor. Activate the Mute option. Click the Lock icon to prevent this property editor from being recycled so that you can easily unmute it later.
3. Adjust the positions of the deformers and envelope as desired.
4. Do either or both of the following:
- If you have moved a deformer, then to reset its reference pose, select it and choose Deform > Envelope > Set Reference Poses from the Animate toolbar. Repeat for other deformers as necessary. Note that you can also branch- or tree-select deformers in hierarchies before choosing this command, as well as select a group containing the deformers.
and/or
- If you have moved the envelope object or points on it, then to reset its reference pose, select it and choose the Deform > Envelope > Set Reference Poses again.
If the envelope weights have not been frozen, the initial weights are recalculated based on the relative positions of the new reference poses of the deformers and envelope. Any manual adjustments you made to the deformer assignments and envelope weights are preserved.
5. Unmute the Envelope Operator.

[dsommers]

Thank you Manny. A very important lesson learned!

[dsommers]

After Setting Reference poses on the deformers and the enveloped object the mesh is now laying on it's side with the Envelope Operator's mute de-activated. I expected the mesh to pop back into the skeleton. There must be something I'm missing. My urge is to rotate the mesh back into place but I have a feeling that would only make the problem worse.