I've created a rig that can switch between the animation channel / DA parameters and a CHOP control channel.

It was working great when I was designing it and then I opened it up again today and I can't seem to access any of my handles unless I select the entire node in the network view.

So, I'd like a little bit more information on how handles really work. The user reference hasn't really gotten me there apparently.

The weirdness is related to my use of if-statements in the controls but it works fine when the whole node is selected. When I try to pose individual hands/legs etc I don't get a handle.

PLEASE HELP !!!!!

ok found a work around … I switched the original pose peices back to their original channels (l_tx_arm bla bla) and copied those peices, then used the crowd assignment to switch the visibility and child-blend as opposed to an expression right in the parameter.

I'm still not clear on how these things work though. Does the handle somehow “know” that it's being referenced from that node before it can work? So, does it have to say the handle's channel in that expression in order to function?