Applying Joints and Weightings to the Character
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— Figure 4.51: Aligning the Up Vector.
hand. If you still have the Null object that we created for the alignment of the joints, then use that one instead. Simply pull this object into the Up Vector field, which makes the use of the Add button unnecessary. Then select all following MOCCA IK tags in the Object Manager with a frame selection and, in their dialogs, pull the new Null object into the Up Vector field as well. Figure 4.51 shows the last few steps. Since the joints might have been rotated, you should deactivate the Skin object for a moment by simply clicking on the green checkmark behind it in the Object Manager. The geometry of the character then automatically jumps back to the state in which it was modeled. In case their position changed, use the two external handlers at the wrists to place the joint chains in the center of the arms. Then click on Set Pose in the Weight tag of the character to save the new angles and positions of the joints.
Activate the Skin object again by clicking on the now red cross in the Object Manager. The character should remain unchanged. Figure 4.52 shows these last steps. On the left side you can see the supporting display of lines for the Up Vectors and the yellow connecting line that automatically spans between the anchor and the last link of a MOCCA IK chain. Converting Joints to Bones We are now at a point where we could start with the animation. But since I would like to demonstrate a possible exchange of the animation with an external program that doesn’t know joints, we will first convert the current joint rig to a bone setup. All weightings and IK tags remain the same. Select the root joint and then choose Character>Conversion>Convert to Bones. A new bone hierarchy is generated, displayed