[3ds max] elbows rotating in opposite directions, no joint orienting tools?

I have a skeleton with elbows rotating in opposite directions, around the Z axis (the normal elbow bend axis)

When I rotate the right arm in +z, it bends forward, but the left arm in +z bends backwards.

How do I get these joints to rotate the same?
Does max have a joint orient tool or a flip axis tool?’

I’ve tried affect pivot only + mirror tool, but pivot changes cause the bone & children to move out of place, so not really affecting pivot only in this case…

I can achieve this effect with the mirror bone tool, but the skeleton is procedural generated by script, so I want to do it after the initial creation of the skeleton.

Hello, this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M06ZBn6DJcI&list=PLnKw1txyYzRlxh1-BT4CifPXC5TBg2vUd&index=5 should help, watch from 6:18.

thanks, that was a solution.
seems odd to not have a built in joint orienting tool like Maya…

So I have gone through the task of rotating bone pivots in order to achieve the state described here

"…There are two general points to remember here,

  1. You should be able to select every joint in a chain and have them bend in the same direction when you rotate in a single axis.
  2. Behaviours should correspond across different limbs in the same rig, so for example rotation in X should rotate the arms forwards, legs forwards and spine forwards - consistency of rotation behaviour is the aim."

but now that my arms behave this way, their joints seem a bit odd -namely that X (down the bone) and Z (forward bend) is flipped on the left arm.

My question is: is this normal?

i ask because I’m about to implement an attachment system. It will need to communicate XYZ offsets, and I don’t know if the flipped left arm axes will be trouble…

threads regarding the general lack of joint orientation tools in Max tend to go dead fast, from what I have seen.
So I have to wonder if this idea matters in 3DS Max (and if not, why not?)

Post script, years later :
In 3DS Max, Do not do what I did!

Max bones have a mind of their own, their orientation is subject to a built in set of rules
They will do crazy things if you try to “trick” them into orienting a certain way as if they were maya bones.
build the desired orientation behavior into your control shapes not the bones.
then you can constrain with ‘relative’ on and get the result described above.

or skip max bones all together and use boxes / dummys / point objects as bones instead.