Hi,

I have added bones to a human model to learn some animation(the bones are created with no IK). When I select a bone to manipulate, I can only do Rotation. I cannot move the bones for doing simple animations like moving a leg. When I try the Move tool with the bones, I see this message in the status bar at the bottom in red: “Error: Handle could not be created because all of its parameters are locked.”

Am I doing something wrong or am I missing something basic?

Thanks,
Vijay

bones don't translate - they just rotate…
place a null at the top of each bone chain - then you can translate the null

Having said that, you can unlock the translate parameters and move them, but that's probably not what you want anyhow since that will detach them. If you want the parent bone to extend its length as well, the best way to move a joint is to use the Bones tool.

Ok, that works now! Thanks for the help guys!

If I could ask a follow up question, since I created the full skeleton without the null nodes, it is a bit painful to go back and add these null nodes to each of them. Is there an easy way to do this?

Also, it seems like it's best to start that creating these null nodes from the beginning. Are there any tricks for doing this automatically?

No, you should not need to add extra null nodes. See my post above.

it would be helpful to know why you're adding these nulls…
if they're just for more control in placing your bones - that's cool, but you'll want to delete them when you're done as they WILL slow things down.