hi there,
i’have an arm controlled by a circle both for translation and rotation. Rotations are controlled by connecting the circle local axis to the wrist joint local axis. It seems to work.
Now, i have to mirror all the Left arm setup on the right arm, what happens:
i duplicate the left controller, rename it right and snap-move it on the right wrist.
I should have mirrored axises but i can’t do it cause i’m newbie in maya.

I’ve tried to rotate the controller’s axises by F8(component mode)+ “?” key to show rotate axises. But i cannot obtain a specular left hand controller. Also, If i try connecting the rotations between the right Controller and the joint i get 2 axises rotations working good, while the other one goes the opposite way. I could fix that if i could connect via script the wrong axis to the joint’s minus axis (let’s say controller.x to joint.-x) rotation, but i don’t know how to edit the connection expression. Every solution is accepted, thanks in advance. Maya Rocks, but it’s quite difficult to startup with ;)

Daniel

An easy way I use for getting controllers lined up with joints is to do the following.

It helps to position a controller by parenting it to a locator or group. To do this either, group the controller to itself (press ‘g’) or create a locator and parent the controller to it.(select the controller then the locator and press ‘p’)

At this point the controller and the group or locator should be at the origin, have the same center pivot, have zeroed transfoms and a scale of 1.

Now, select the joint and then select the group or locator (not the controller)
enter the following into the Command Line;

delete `parentConstraint`

*note that the (`) is found on the (~) key on a US keyboard.*
putting a command followed by a command in ` ` performs the command in ` ` first and then the preceding command.

Your controller should now be all lined up and oriented to your joint with transforms that are still all zeroed out. You don’t need to freeze transforms on any at this point.
Now, you can connect the rotate of the control to the rotate of the joint.
(don’t connect the local axis).

Hopefully this helps.
~Ben