ERCO like Light rig with Vray IES

[super gnu]

its the dreaded "gimbal lock" by the sounds of it.. to be honest it gives me a headache (try making a camera do a loop-the loop!) and ive yet to see many good ways to deal with it, however my animation skills are not exactly top flight, and it must be work-aroundable, since i dont see pixar having an issue with it.

[trixian]

Euler and gimbal lock

Reorder your rotation axis. Default is xyz, where each is dependant of its parent\prior. Setting this to something else (zyx for example) will possibly solve your gimbal issues depending on the objects you are rigging and their local axis, but you might have to re-rig the hierarchy after reordering. Doing the rigging on dummys\bones\stand-in objects is advisable, and just link up your fixture parts after you get it working.