Step 6: Fine-Tuning Joints

At this point, you may want to go back and fine-tune some or all of your joints so as to make your figure behave exactly as you want it to. Do this using the Bone tool and/or Joint Editor palette as discussed in Working with Joints and Weights. Use spherical or capsule-shaped falloff zones, or weight painting, to add more realism to the appearance of the joints as they rotate, bend, and twist.

Remember that joint bending only occurs between an object and its parent. The bends do not progress to other children or above the parent in the hierarchy. Be sure to keep this in mind as you tweak the joints. Also, if you have body parts which are symmetrical left to right, and are named using the convention of starting with “r” for right-side body parts and “l” for left-side body parts, you can automatically copy joint zones by using one of the symmetry commands as discussed in Positioning_Bones_Using_Rig_Symmetry. This can save time and effort when tweaking joints, and ensures that one side of your figure will behave exactly like the other part.