As I've been reading the posts in this section I keep running into the term "fan bones." I've searched the documentation included with A:M and the forum, but I haven't found a description of what it means. Can anyone enlighten me?

Charles Bandla

They are bones used to help smooth out joints in you model. For example, you have a bicep and forearm bone, at the elbow joint you could place a fan bone to smooth the transition between the two bones. The fan bone would orient like the two bones, which would average out between the two.

Here's an example.

Ok! So the smaller bone in the elbow is the fan. I looks like it's doing the same job as a flexor in M*y*.

Thanks!
Charles Bandla

Sorry, wouldn't know about the flexor.

Hi mtpeak2 and Bandla
I was looking for the same thing this morning, I have been using the training by Barry Z. and know that I see your lil movie I see that Barry calls them 'cosmetic constraints'.
Thanks for answering my question.

Barry tends to title them 'OL Forearm Right 50%', then sets the constraint as Orient Like (the right forearm) at 50% ...

I find the 'pro' is that I know exactly which bone is constrained to which other bone but the 'con' is that it's a lot of words in the project workspace when you're looking for it :-/

Which brings up another topic - something I've never learned to do well - you can hide whole groups of things in the PWS when you don't need to deal with them. In the case of fan bones and many other things, you set them up once, and from then on they work automatically. So you can hide them and not have them cluttering up your work.

Tute, anybody?

I'm not sure what your question is.