A Bones system is a jointed, hierarchical linkage of “bone” objects that demonstrates kinematics. Each "bone" is a parametric wireframe object. You can’t render bones or modify individual bone objects.
Create panel for bones systems
Bones have been augmented to support a new IK controller, resulting in a different type of IK system. As a result, there are now various options available when you click the Bones button:
See IK Controller on for a detailed description of how to set up and use the new IK system, and how the Bones settings fit into this.
Bones system
The effect of transforming a bones system depends on whether Inverse Kinematics (IK) is active or not.
In either case, bones remain connected to each other. Transforms you apply to one bone can propagate to other bones in the system. With IK off, the propagation is always to bones that are lower in the hierarchy. With IK on, the propagation can be in either direction along the hierarchy.
You can also scale and rotate bones.
See Using Inverse Kinematics
Assign To Children: Check this to assign the New IK controller to all of the created bones, except the first (root) bone. When this is unchecked, the standard PRS Transform controller is assigned to the bones, which are then the same as bones in R1 of 3DS MAX.
Assign To Root: Check this to assign an IK controller to the root bone as well as all of its children. When this is not checked, the root bone is assigned a PRS Transform controller. This checkbox is disabled when Assign to Children is not checked.
Create End Effector: When this is checked a New IK end effector is automatically assigned to the last child in the chain of created bones. When unchecked, the end effector is not assigned. See Creating Bones,
The items in this area let you automatically assign bones to the linked objects in an existing hierarchy. Note that the options in the IK controller area affect these bones in the same way as they affect bones you create with the mouse.
Pick Root: Click this button, and then select an object in the viewport that will be the root object of your chain. Bones will be created for that object, plus all its descendants. Note that the selected object can be the child of another, thus resulting in boning of a subtree.
Auto Link: When this is checked, the corresponding objects in the specified hierarchy are automatically linked to their associate bones. When unchecked, the bones are linked to each other, but the objects are not linked to the bones. In most cases, you will want this checked.
Copy Joint Parameters: When checked, all of the joint parameters (sliding and rotational joint parameters found in the Hierarchy/IK branch) are copied from the objects in the hierarchy to the bones.
Match Alignment: When checked, the local coordinate systems of the bones are created to match the local coordinate systems of their associate objects in the hierarchy. When unchecked, the bones are created with local coordinate systems that are aligned with the world axis.
Additional changes in Bones include the following:
Creation: The creation method has been improved. When you create bones, you can begin with either a click or a drag action to create a single bone. (Previously, if you began with a single click, you created two bones at the beginning location.)
Selection: The hit testing on bones was frustrating. Clicking on a joint would sometimes select the next joint down, because it would hit the link instead. It’s been fixed so the link is not hit-test sensitive in the vicinity of the parent joint. You can now always get the joint you click.
Local Coordinates: The local coordinates of the bones are now aligned with the world coordinates during creation.
Scaling: The diamond icons representing the bone joints no longer change size when you scale the bones. Thus, they act in the same way as camera or spotlight icons. This is to prevent them from disappearing when you scale down your bone hierarchies.
The Systems panel appears.
The first bone you create is at the top of the hierarchy. The last bone you create is at the bottom. For more about linked objects, see Building Hierarchies of this guide.