Set action bone ranges to [0, 1]: useful?

[Peter Moldovia]

I’m just wondering if you think it’s useful to take the time to set action bone ranges to [0,1]?

In the video (https://cgcookie.com/lessons/rig-a-crane-arm-part-05) the bone that controls the open/close animation uses its local x value, which is constrained to the range [-1.5, 1.5]. When producing rigs/models for others to use, do you think it’d be worth the time to set that range to [0,1]? (Programmers often prefer to work with [0, 1] as that makes it clear where there the current value lies in the range, and there’s no need to normalize the value over the range, as it’s always normalized. I’m not sure if animators have the same needs/hang ups.)

Thanks!

[Wayne Dixon]

Hi Peter,
Yes – a range of [0,1] makes more sense in most situations rather than joystick controls.  The only time it becomes a real issue is when the size of 1 unit doesn’t match up very well with the model.  For example – the model is a mouse, and 1 Blender unit is like 50 times his height.  To get around that situation you can give the control a parent and then scale down the parent, but then you have at least one bone in the rig that doesn’t have a default scale of 1.  (This is a bigger evil in my book)

I don’t know any animators that are bothered by this type of setup.  Do they prefer [0,1]? Sure.  But most animator’s I work with don’t complain about anything – they just get the job done.

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