weaponinhand from the above post and get the translation part of it, but that would only give you the position of the hand. You would need to correctly orient the object in the hand. For example, a running animation, the hand of a person will move around, so the position will not cut it.
Unless you were using something that was symmetrical, like a sphere, where orientation doesn’t matter.

If you want to place a weapon in the hand of an model here ss how you do it.

When you run an animation, you call GetTransform(float dt) each frame and pass that to the shaders. You need to find out which bone equal which index in the array returned in the function.
In the class SceneAnimator, there is a protected

std::vector Bones

That vector holds all the bones of the model, with the bone name, (cBone::Name). So, if the modeler did his or her job right, the bones should be named properly: hand, forearm, bicep. So, you can create a function to tell you which Index the bone you want is and use that to get the transform to it.

So, if you want to get the transform form just the hand.
Call GetTransform(float dt)
Pass that to your shader like normal.

Create a function like this in SceneAnimator

unsigned int GetBoneIndex(const string& bonename);

the function should return the index of the bone with that name. Now, you can add code to the Init functions so that an std::map is created to make the search faster, otherwise, you will have to run over the entire std::vector Bones to find the matching bone.

When you find the matching bone, return the index.

Use that index to map directly to the transforms returned from GetTransform( float dt) There is a 1 to 1 relationship

Use that matrix to correctly place the object in the hand.

Here is some pseudo code

In the drawfunction of the model. Assuming EACH model has a Scaling, Rotation, and Translation matrix, and using a left handed system.

void Draw(){
std::vector& temp = Sceneanim.GetTransforms(dt);
//Pass temp to shader here
unsigned int handindex = Sceneanim.GetBoneIndex(“Hand”);
mat4& handmat = temp[handindex];// this is where the hand is relative to the model

//To get a weapon or other objects correct transform to the hand of the model it would be something like this. I am appending a model. onto the characters transform

mat4 weaponinhand = handmat * model.scaling * model.Roation * model.Translation ;

weaponinhand can now be used to move the weapon into place in the shader. I hope that makes sense, if not, please respond and I will do my best to explain.

I was wondering how or what transform to use to get the bones location in 3d space. so i could for instance attach a mesh to the bone location for say weapons or attaching ragdoll rigid bodies.

thanks if any light can be shed on this, it’s just the last thing i need to find out for my animation framework.

here is where I’m at if anyone is interested that comes along here.
http://devmaster.net/forums/topic/16358-dual-quaternion-skinning/

I haven’t used the dual quaternion code in a while so I cant say exactly what is needed to get it to work. But any code changes should be made in the GetTransforms function — I know that much. The rest of the code doesnt need to be changed.