I am having trouble positionning some custom shapes on the rig. This is fine for example for the bones which are horizontal, like the feet or the IK poles (oriented on the Y axis), since at worst I just need to rotate the custom shape on one axis to get it in the right position. However, the shoulder bones are in a random orientation and I can't find how to position their custom shapes properly. If I use edit mode to transform the custom shape (or in object mode and apply the scale / rotation), I am transforming it in the global coordinates while it moves in the local coordinates of the bone in the rig, so it is very hard to get it in the right position. Is there an easy technique to do it ?
Honestly, I dread this question 😅 It's come up a few times over the years, and I cannot come up with an easy way to explain it. The "simple" explanation is that when a custom shape object is applied to a bone it inherits that bone's orientations. So if you want the custom shape to be oriented a specific way, you need to match your custom object shape to the bone's orientations.
....does that make sense? It's not an easy concept to conceive via text, so I don't expect it to make sense 😞