My question isn’t where to place it or how the mesh will respond to the organic feel, but rather, why can’t I twist the bloody joints to the correct Z pointing up so that when I will select all the joints the finger will fold in on itself in the correct direction.
I don’t remember having to switch my move settings btwn world, object, etc. I do know ONCE it’s placed, we were always taught to freeze transforms, but only after the joint was placed.
My problem is, I can’t get the orientation to line up properly when I place it. I must be doing something wrong, I just need to know so I can proceed. I know once I know what I’m doing wrong, I’ll be able to figure the rest out.
But since you’re talking about freezing transforms on joints, are you using the normal rotation channels to orient them? I was taught to leave those alone and use the “Joint Orient” attribute visible in AE.
Sorry if that’s way off - total shot in the dark is the best I got without that link.
For what it worth i’ve usually found it better to build a single finger, disconnected from the rest of the hand, with the right orients and then clone it and align it to the model, adjusting segment lengths as needed. Since fingers are usually purely planar this slightly mechanical approach gives nice clean orientations.