Friday, July 16, 2004

IK/FK hybrid system

NOTE: This IK/FK hybrid system is still a WIP. I will continue to develop it as I use it in practice (I'm an animator, too.) Here's an example on how to use it: assuming your character is in a T-pose and fully-rigged (I personally use Christopher Lutz's excellent SimpleRigger), turn off full-time IK and make sure the rig still works. Next, select the IK hand control and move the hand along the character's side. Run IK Key on the hand control. Next, select the forearm bone and rotate the forearm so that the hand is at chest level. Run FK Goals on the forearm bone. All the goals should snap back into place and you can continue to use either FK or IK.
 
IK Key v0.92IK Key, designed specifically for non-full-time IK usage, creates and deletes keys on IK goals and their corresponding IK chains, thus eliminating the need for full-time IK in many cases. To use, select the IK goal and activate the Create IK Key (or the Delete IK Key) generic. You can also use Select IK Chain to select an entire IK chain, which can be useful for editing keyframes in non-full-time IK mode.

FK Goals v0.9FK Goals, designed specifically for non-full-time IK usage, keys an FK rotation and snaps all goals of the IK chain back into place so that you can continue to use IK on the chain. When used in combination with IK Key, it becomes the foundation of a hybrid IK/FK system that will allow you to use IK and FK on the same set of bones on the same frame. To snap all the goals without creating an FK rotation key, turn off Key Current Object.

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