I don't usually do char. rigging, but I have to fix something. I have a KineFX hand skeleton. A RigPose places the hand in a certain pose. I need to tweak the thumb a bit, but the thumb's joint axes are not properly aligned, they don't point down the thumb bones. I tried using Orient Joints (on just the thumb), Pose Difference (with "Apply Offset"), VEX code (link below), and Rig Match Pose, but I can't get it right. Either the thumb mesh is distorted with re-oriented joints, or the thumb mesh is fine, but the thumb joints are not re-oriented.

VEX solution for orient joints [www.sidefx.com]

Hi, maybe try stashing the skeleton in a skeleton SOP.

Then right click in the scene view (or use some hotkey) to access orient joint.

Then do what is needed manually.

I hope that helps.

Cheers!

SWest
Then do what is needed manually.

I adjusted the pivot axes manually and got it working. Odd, that there are all these SOPs with names that sound like they'd just do the job (Orient Joints. Pose Difference, Rig Match Pose), yet none of them does it in a simple, intuitive manner.

element33
none of them does it in a simple, intuitive manner.

I've done some rigging in the past with Maya as well as Blender.

There are a couple of different tools in Houdini that can be used for joint orientations.

Orient Joints SOP basically for aligning one of the axis along the bone (it works). This is the quick and rough part.

Then Skeleton SOP for manual tweaking. There are some options such as numeric editing and snapping to 45 degrees. It works as well.

Finally I use some VEX (shared by the community) to orient selected joints to the world coordinates. This is used when the above is inefficient.

I've studied rigging and especially related things in Houdini for a couple of years now at a hobbyist level and would claim the above is enough to do the orient joints task without frustration.

Besides that there are a couple of additional tools that seem to work fine, for example the mirror joints node. It seems that it does not invert the scale.

SideFX also responded to an RFE request as well regarding this.

However, guessing what nodes are designed to do based on reading their names is probably just another way to waste your time.