Read rotation, Local vs World

I have an animated b3d file exported from max (that was attached to a biped with a .bvh motion capture)
I've been trying to convert the joint rotations from global to local and regardless of how I read the values during playback (True or False), when I try to apply these YPR values to another unanimated character (same one, uncontaminated, without animation) the joints only rotate correctly if I specify GLOBAL.
In short-
How can I read the local rotation instead of the world rotation if they both return the same thing?

I suppose part of it could be that all the parents might be at 0 rotation. My arm animation only affects 4 joints. Another part is that my arms are straight out at 0 degrees roll. The bipeds were at the side at 0.
I hope someone can help. I'm really not sure what to do.

Hey Muddy, it would be nice if you can upload a sample 3d model or part of the code in question so others can understand it better.

..and Welcome aboard

for bones or pivots you only need to use entitypitch(bone,true), entityyaw(bone,true), entityroll(bone,true) (take a look at the documentation for the necessity to set the parameter to false or true, default is false)

for skinnedvertices or vertices of a scaled, rotated, positioned mesh, you need to use tformpoint(vertexX,vertexY,vertexZ,entity,0) (transforms the position of vertex from entity space to world space)