IK Terminator vs Inverse Kinematics?

Mistara

IK Terminator vs Inverse Kinematics?

do they work together?

IK Terminator is asking to  exclude from children chains?

Inverse Kinematics is asking to  enable tracling, track target orientation?

 

oh i see, moving hand, ik terminator on shoulder, stops motion at the shoulder.

do i set animation group of each leg?

 

 tee hee its working, rotating  its hip, feetsies stayin putt
grabbbing footsy with arrows stetching leg, bending knee, hip stays putt

 

 can keyframe enable tracking.

stuck now >.<  trying to add another keychain from neck1 to neck 6

evilproducer

The IK Terminator does exactly what the name suggests. It terminates the IK at whatever joint it is applied to. Load a V4 because the bones aren't visible as they are in Genesis or later. You will see blue lines from the hands to the shoulders, and from the feet to the hips. Those lines indicate the IK chain for the bones in that tree. If you select the shoulder, and look under the Modifiers tab, you will see the IK terminator is applied to it.


Genesis and Genesis 2 don't have an IK terminator applied to the shoulder joints. The only terminator I could find was on the hip. Which means if you move the hand, the IK is translated down the entire bone heirarchy to the hip. It may be more "accurate" that way, but it is also more frustrating to animate or pose using IK in most situations that I have come across. I tend to add an IK terminator to the shoulder for Genesis figures because of that. I also add it to the Pelvis bone for each leg, because moving one leg causes the other to move. Very frustrating!

Mistara

yeah, think i read in the manual advised not using the pelvis.

as far as i can tell, needs a "target" thingee to track, basically a tarhet helper.

with the tool, i can only get it to add the 2 ik target trackerss, for each leg.

dont see how to add a third for the head to hip. was afraid to experiment, didnt want to crash the scene.

 

dont understand why saving a pose is so crazy.  poser can save a handpose, think carrara should be able to just as easy, frustrating.

3DAGE

Depending on the model,. you don't need a Hip to head IK,.  the Head (and spinal bones) should be Children of the HIP,. so if the hipo is moved, the spine/head also moves.

the children bones can be moved/rotated (within the limits of the constraints) without effecting the hip position/rotation.

 

If you're working with a Premade figure,. it's probabaly got IK build into the figure,.  Try selecting the hand, and moving it,. if the figure's arm bends at the elbow and shoulder,.. the figure has ik and limits.

 

For a figure which has IK ,. but doesn't load with any IK Target helpers objects,. you'd just create some helper objects, name them, and set up tracking to make the Bone follow that Helper object 

for you're own custom figure,. you'd create the ik chains on the bones you want,. and that should automagically create the Helper objects, add the Modifiers to the bones, and set an IK terminator at the start of the chain EG Thigh's / shoulders.

 

You don't need target helpers for an IK terminator,. It's simply an END point to an IK chain,.  it stops motion continuing to other bones.

 

Some Premade figures can be loaded into carrara through the file/import menu, (Poser character (CR2) ) which gives you an option to automagically add IK helpers.

once that's done./ you just need to enable tracking for the IK helpers in the modifiers tab

Hope it helps :)

 

Mistara

thanks.  

for multi neck critters like goose and subdragon, any ik advice much appreciated.

did wrong, doh, moving foot also moving head

3DAGE

Animals move in really interesting ways,. the head often remains steady while the body moves,. see cat's stalking

the dragons should have some neck (and tail) bend "slider controls" to help posing, and that's probably the simplest/easiest method  to create some initial key poses

then you can see how it plays and adjust to suit

In flight the head /neck may move around ,.. looking, or breathing fire,. while the body rises up and down as the wings raise and lower in the opposite direction,. so as the wings come down the body lifts slightly and as the wings are brought back up,. the body drops slightly.

for geese,. you can look at clips of geese walking around,.

for other creatures which may not exist,. it's creative interpretation based on observing how other things move, and the mechanics of the creature.

evilproducer

IK is a big topic. More so when you start asking about target helpers.

 

evilproducer

Wait. Why would you need the leg to track two target helpers?

Mistara

1 for each leg.

need a 3rd for the neck parts.

2 more for arms. wyvern wont need em lol.

and dont need to delete the ik target trackers when they arent needed, lets you keyframe the checkbox to enable.

 

animation groups big topic too.  the nitty-gritty.
trial and error is a lot of error  lol
crashes, freezes, somtimes a polite error message.

 

was doing the soft body attach with flowforce, thought i was golden. error message. undo not fixing, must start over  woes

evilproducer

Are you having each foot joint track a seperate target? I usually name the targets and choose different colors to see them better in the viewport. For instance, I will use R foot target, and L foot target, or something like that.

Mistara

colors good idea!  left and right gets confusing when they turning about

3DAGE

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gy6mcncojt7iela/helpers.car?dl=0

just a lil example of helpers,.

Naming things and using different colours are good ideas :)

you can also use different helper objects,. the feet helpers here are IK helpers , ripped out of an ik chain, and renamed to suit

if you made a lil figure and set the feet to "track" those helpers,. you'd have a walk cycle.