I parent constrain the pencil (see anim. in next post) to the red hand-pad subdiv mesh, which results in the unwanted offset (the pad has frozen transformations and a deleted history). But found out that when I constrain the object to the parent mesh (R_HandWrist) or parent-parent joint (R_Joint_Wrist) of the pad mesh (R_HandPad), it works. I parented the pad straight to the joint and also works ok.


Since the constrain works on its parent's mesh, and works on its parent's parent joint, and works on the pad parented under the joint,... could it be that a mesh can not be a parent constrain target when it's under another non-joint node in a joint hierarchy or something?? (just guessing)

There must be some logic behind this. I'm determined to find out. It's gonna bug me till I figured out why (these things can keep me awake all night). ..... or is it a bug?

I learned parent constraining from the Maya 6 tutorial: Learning Resources > Tutorials > Animation > Lesson 5 Inverse Kinematics > Applying parent constraints on an IK system (link might not work).
Here the parent constrain target objects for the CargoBox are the ArmControl (parented under another mesh) and Platform (root node). Neither parented in a joint hierarchy.

Attached a hypergraph screencap of a stipped hierarchy.