Stuck with lamp stem bone

[Tunrax]

So let me get this straight, I’m doing the IK bone limit thing, every bone in my model works perfectly except the lamp stem bone (in my case I named him the root bone), as you gonna see in the picture the bone has all the limit parameters grayed out and even if I try to move it with the other bones it just doesn’t move (but it moves if I rotate it manually with just the R key which is not the way we want to do it).

So to have a checklist:

• it has no bone constraints applied
• is parented with the base bone
• when it had rotation lock with the bone constraint one it worked
• Auto IK is checked
• Is not on rest position
• it has rotation and scale applied since mickey said to apply it lectures ago

I even checked the file from the repo of the lecture that Mickey uploaded to GitHub, open it and I really can’t find the way to solve my problem with this only bone, both files are identical except for the grayed out parameters in the IK limiter menu.

if I forgot to mention something just let me know.

[FedPete]

Just my 2 cents,

• are those limitations related to the child bone? And if so, the first bone doesn’t have a child?
• And the number of IK bones in the IK tree, must be less -1 (under control of IK)

It’s too long ago, to say more in detail about this, maybe someone else.

[NP5]

Is it your stem bone axis not local? The Y is not in line ‘up’ with the bone.

[Tunrax]

I just checked that, that is the axis for the base bone, not the lamp stem, I just doubled checked the ones from the stem bone and they are aligned with the axis, I tried temporary deleting the base bone which it didn’t helped much.

[Tunrax]

@FedPete

• are those limitations related to the child bone? And if so, the first bone doesn’t have a child?

To be honest I don’t think the lamp stem is a child bone, he is parented with the lower arm and parented with the base bone, even if I unparent the base bone from the stem it doesn’t helps on anything, the bone keeps being stiff.

@FedPete

• And the number of IK bones in the IK tree, must be less -1 (under control of IK)

Ok, I must say I didn’t understood very well this part, are you saying that I have adjust something like the chain length in one of the bone constraints of some sort?

[Tunrax]

So I asked on blender stack exchange (Specifically this link) And in short it was an easy mistake for a beginner, so in the bone constraint I put the chain length on 3 instead of 4 and thanks for that I didn’t have the root bone (or better said the stem bone) working.

I hope if someone has the same problem in the future can see this and double check the chain length of his model.

[NP5]

Well done using Blender stack exchange. I often use that to find people answers to pass along. Noticed you were able to upload the file there which helps a lot. Working from just images usually covers things and we ask for the file in a later stuck situation.