IK to FK switching
 

I am a noob when it comes to animation and rigging, but you gotta start somewhere.

Does anyone know how to switch from IK to FK and back again? I have a character in the Full body IK but sometimes I want to animate FK. Any ideas?

Thanks guys!

you have the attribute IK Blend on your IK handle. this boolean value switches between IK and FK. you also might want to create a new attribute on on of your controllers and call it switcher - make it boolean as well. then connect this new attribute with the IK Blend attribute from the IKhandle by using the connection editor.

Hey Thanks Falott for your imput.

For some reason (and maybe it is because Mayas new FBIK wont let you do it) I don't see the attribute IK blend for the IK handle.

Here is a screen shot with my attribute editor.

Any ideas?

have a look at here.

off topic?
 

Hiya..

maybe this is not the right place but i give it a try :bandit:

I played a bit around with this new feature FBIK ( or is it a bug?)
Since i rig my chars by "hand" I am always open to time saving.
The controls seem, in my opinion, somehow hard to work with.
For example: Found no way to zero rotation axis - so how do i go back to the bindpose?

Gave some tools a try, such as bipedfactory and FBIK_CharacterControl. Was funny, i didn't knew in how many weird ways a rig can be screwed up ..hehe.

Also I'm missing the controls for natural movment, such as knee twist. After all - I think that i can rig a char by hand not nearly as fast as automated but with much more intuitive controls on it.
Maybe it's a bit early to judge and I should dig deeper, but just for timesaving purposes, can anyone tell me where the advantages are buried in this tool?
cheers

Mac

first of all, I´d rather learn rigging without any tools first. this way you get to know the major needs and problems within the process of enveloping.

take the LRA for example. you can´t zero it when having input connections on your joint chain. you have to zero it first and orient the joints fitting your needs then. I use X pointing down the chain with +Z as the bending axis. when the skeleton is set up you might create a bind pose. as soon as you have some kind of input connects like a skin or set driven keys, you end in a mess if you didn´t create a clean joint hierarchy first. good tool I use is from paul thuriot - the templateSkeletonLE.mel but i find it important to understand first what scripts do for you later.

right
 

Hey Falott,

You nailed it, man !
What kind of beneficial effect can scripts and tools have to your workflow when you don't have a clue what's going on?

So, I will stick to my way - modeling, wrap deformer, rigging (without ik!), skinning, paint weights, deformers. The ik at last, cause, as long as there is no IK I can reach the bind pose by simply set all joint rotations to 0,0,0 ( piece of cake with a small mel script)
Ok, that's only possible if you got a clean joint hierarchy, as You mentioned.

Maybe not the fastest workflow, but I can hand over my model to every animator without getting complains.

I did not forget to mention uv layout, I intend to export my char and look for some fool to let him/her do the uv mapping while i'm skinning...etc :bandit:

@JDigital: Sorry, this is maybe a bit offtopic, but Falott is right. Learn to rig your char by hand. It's fun and not so hard as You might think. Anyway, there is no script or tool that gives You the results You want. You always have to tweak.


cheers

Mac