IK leg/foot setups?

[goosh]

I've got one..

It's pretty simple (no foot roll, etc) but it might help you

http://www.digital-dreams.net

Good luck

Goosh

[AWAKE]

I hate the reverse foot.

[Judge Drury]

Have you ever tried SkeletonWorks? (http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Community/Learn/how_tos/animation_character/skeletonWorks/) :xtreme:

[Slugger]

goosh, I am using a reverse foot with IK, thing is I find it very hard/time-consuming to use,
Judge Drury, will try the SkeletonWorks,
cheers,

[Slugger]

Tried the SkeletonWorks, skeleton right out of the box, but it doesnt do any fancy IK-foot setup, very useful for doing the basic skeleton/s though, anyone else with clues how to setup a IK-foot that is easily animatable?

[AWAKE]

Here's a simple way I've grown fond of. tell me what you think

[Slugger]

Ok AWAKE,
downloaded and tried it, rotational keys are supposed to be set with the locators right? but somehow I could not manage to set any keys on any of em, they seems to be working though in viewports, but as said cant set kays on them the locators that is, rest seems to be OK,
cheers,

[AWAKE]

Slugs,



everything is on the curve for the foot control.. Translation, Rotation, Knee, toe and heel controls. Check the channel box for the feet control curves. The locators are keyed through set driven Key to do the heel toe stuff. You do have to do a little counter animation sometimes, but it's a small trade off when you think of the simplicity. Hope that helps..

[Slugger]

Ok AWAKE,
got it, trying it out now, many thanks, owe you a beer, cheers, :beer:

[goosh]

Awake

What's wrong with the Reverse foot lock?

[seasterling]

I usually create groups of the joints (or groups of groups) and move their pivots where necessary. Its real simple this way to place multiple pivots wherever you want in the heirarchy for roll, pivot, toe wiggle etc.

-sam

[AWAKE]

goosh, I haven't used it in a while, but I found an awkwardness similar to gimble lock with a bunch of different pivots. I'm still looking for the holy foot grail.

[BlissDD]

AWAKE,

I have downloaded and had a look at your rig....could you possibly direct me to a tutorial for creating this type of rig, as i am new to Maya and would love to learn how to do this!!! Do you have any tutorials yourself???

Cheers dude!!

[bentllama]

Here is a rig I use religiously now. I used to use only control objects which drove the rotation of the skeleton directly [basically FK]...but, now I use a method that incorporates the speed of FK and the pivot control of a reverse foot setup without the reverse foot headache. This setup was based largely upon Jason Schleifer's foot rigging techniques [thanks Jason! :)] while leaving my preffered "FK-like" functionality...

I have found that I ruff out the animation using the control curves/flags then massage the foot using the extra attributes later if needed. 2 layers of optional control that are actually very efficient to use.

Take a peek and give it a try! :)


__________________________________________

"f_leg"

Controls leg IK and rotations of the foot. User can use exra custom attributes found on this node to control aspects of the foot at a deeper level. Pivot control for the toe and ball of the foot can used by setting values on these custom attributes.

"f_toe"

Controls rotation of the toe.

"f_legPVC"

Controls rotation of the leg through translation of this node.
__________________________________________


*Note: The provided file is a Maya 4.5 file.

[seasterling]

bentllama, this is exactly what I was describing in my post above, I just didn't describe it very well. Looking back I said groups of joints. Oops. You can keep creating groups of these groups and placing their pivots wherever you need them for added controls. You can also screw around with the heirarchy if need be. Anyway, yeah this works great for me too.

-sam

[jschleifer]

Heya!

nice setup, bent! I like the combination of manual manipulation along with the extra attributes.. sweeeeet.. I may have to incorporate it. :)

cheers!
-jason

[bentllama]

Jason...

I played around with your setup after Sigg this year and found that no manual manip on the toe [what you affectionately call "toe wiggle"] was a hindrance to my workflow. Like I said before, I use the manual manips to bang out ruff timing and animation, then I finesse it with the subtleties of the extra attribute/node/ik method I learned from you...

I find this to be the best, easiest, and most efficient foot setup that I have ever used...

...thanks again Jason! :)

[AWAKE]

Damn 4.5.....


I'm out in the cold on this one.

[bentllama]

Originally posted by AWAKE
Damn 4.5.....


I'm out in the cold on this one.

Just change the header and you can open it in 4.0...

look here if you do not know how...

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22876

[AWAKE]

Nice. Thanksllama. That setup does whip the llama's ass. Nice work, yo.



Yeah

[seasterling]

Aaah! I wasn't paying attention the first time I checked it out. Very cool! Thanks for sharing bentllama.

-sam

[Slugger]

bentllama & AWAKE,
Would be nice if someone could write a tutorial or similar to explain how the rig was built, so one could understand the procedure in setting up one for any type of character,
cheers,

[AWAKE]

Id like to see that too. Bent's tutorial would be sharper than mine. I signed adoption papers on your setup, Llama. so what's up? Screen caps and jpgs? Id be down to chech it out

[BlissDD]

i too would LOVE a tutorial :)

[seasterling]

jason, bentllama, anybody else with lots of animation/rigging for animators experience:

How do you guys/your animators actually prefer to control the foot? Any tips?

If I use the ball roll and toe roll attrs to take advantage of the ik the foot stays planted well, but its harder to control the foot due to changes in the knee and the pivots being left behind with the foot controller. If I go with an fk approach (like bentllama seems to like) its much easier to control the foot but its a pain to keep from sliding.

Am I missing something? Everybody always talks about rigging the foot but never about actually using these controls. Does everybody else deal with what I am describing, or is my brain being stupid?

thanks,
sam

[bentllama]

Originally posted by seasterling
jason, bentllama, anybody else with lots of animation/rigging for animators experience:

How do you guys/your animators actually prefer to control the foot? Any tips?

If I use the ball roll and toe roll attrs to take advantage of the ik the foot stays planted well, but its harder to control the foot due to changes in the knee and the pivots being left behind with the foot controller. If I go with an fk approach (like bentllama seems to like) its much easier to control the foot but its a pain to keep from sliding.

Am I missing something? Everybody always talks about rigging the foot but never about actually using these controls. Does everybody else deal with what I am describing, or is my brain being stupid?

thanks,
sam

play with this:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=246120#post246120

as for feet sliding... I have a handy script I use written by a freind of mine [before I knew MEL] that lets you "freeze" a selections' animations for a set period of time...basically you select an object, enter you start frame and end frame [the duration you want your foot to be "locked"], and it takes the value of the first frame and makes the f-curve constant till the last frame you specified...setting keys with constant tangency between the 2 frames...

...that script is great for banging out animation then adding finnesse later...watch out for holds though, cause unlike 2d animation holds on a pc are lifeless...when I use this script I always go back and edit the foot to add some motion...EVEN to the hardest planted foot...

it is a handy script and I should convine my freind to release it one of these days :)

[bentllama]

Originally posted by AWAKE
Id like to see that too. Bent's tutorial would be sharper than mine. I signed adoption papers on your setup, Llama. so what's up? Screen caps and jpgs? Id be down to chech it out

my site will be relaunched before/just after the new year... I will have tutorials there... but not for the foot...cause I don't like you AWAKE... :p :beer:

[/sarcasm]

[seasterling]

bentllama:
I use a rig similiar to yours except that my toe control is an add attr under the foot control (like JS's toe wiggle). Problem with the FK approach is that as soon as you rotate the foot your translate is all over the place to keep from slipping, but I'm not telling you something you don't already know.

I guess what I am getting at would require the ability to pin the rotate pivot of a group to a joint, and that its translation would not affect the children of that group. Aaaargh!

-sam

[bentllama]

Why not add a group node to be the parents of the existing foot controls...with a rotate point at the end of the toe [or wherever you desire]...and use that as a means of "pinning" the foot???

To be honest, and I am not trying to make light of your problem, I never really have an issue with the foot sliding with my methods.

[seasterling]

That is how my foot is rigged. But what I am after is the ability to roll the foot up on the ball and toes with IK and then still be able to pivot from the heel so the foot is not always facing the same direction (side to side). This is easy to do with an FK approach by rotating the foot and toe controllers directly, but then you lose the "pinning" of the IK approach and it becomes a pain to keep the foot from sliding. Maybe this is more clear.

[spaz8]

Hey there "bent" and Jason. Ive been very interested your thoughts on foot/leg rigging. I was origionally going to ask if you (bent) could post the script that sticks the foot over specified frames, but i see its not your call about making it public, (unless you just wanna email it to me :)

perhaps i need to learn some MEL.

ps. could you post any diagrams of your foot rig? for the more visual learners out there. Thanks:bounce:

[lildragon]

Bent this is wild man, is there anyway I can coax you on writing up a mini tut? anything? :)

salud

[bentllama]

the setup is very much akin to jason's that he outlined at the Masterclass he taught at siggraph 2002...

as far as me writing tutorials...well, my website will be up in february...and there will be a section for tutorials...

[lildragon]

Originally posted by bentllama
the setup is very much akin to jason's that he outlined at the Masterclass he taught at siggraph 2002...

Shucks, the only part I saw was the hand setup :hmm:

salud

[seasterling]

Got a look at Jason's Fast Animation Rig dvd today and he mentioned the same problem that I am having. At least now I know I am not alone. Still looking for an answer though.

[jschleifer]

Yep, it's a big problem.. I don't know of any way to do it and still keep the animation curves easy to manipulate.. if you want to animate w/out looking at the curves it'd be pretty simple to make a mel script to change the rotatePivot back and forth and key it.. but who knows what type of interpolation you'd be getting!

-jason

[Jozvex]

Let's just walk on our hands from now on then, it'd be much easier!! I'm sure it'd catch on eventually!

[bentllama]

Originally posted by jschleifer
Yep, it's a big problem.. I don't know of any way to do it and still keep the animation curves easy to manipulate.. if you want to animate w/out looking at the curves it'd be pretty simple to make a mel script to change the rotatePivot back and forth and key it.. but who knows what type of interpolation you'd be getting!

-jason

this is one of the reasons I added the "toe" control flag/curve to the toe... so i could key the flags/control curves and have the foot "lock" roughly where I want it...then...I go back in and add lean, roll, twist, etc with the custom attributes on the foot control and clean that up...

it sounds like a longer process...but I can really bang out keys fast with the control objects...

[coupled with the script i spoke of earlier in this thread, and another script that pins an animated object in worlkd space, that pretty much sums up my IK foot workflow...]

[seasterling]

AaaahHaaaa! I may have finally cracked the problem of pivots being left behind, at least partially. Create another group node above the ball, but below the toe, and place the pivot at the ankle. Now you have control of the foot independent of the leg. As long as your ball node is at zero the pivot will be in its correct position at the ankle. Once my foot is off the ground my ball is usually at zero anyway. You still have to zero out the toe somewhere while the foot is off the ground, but you now have control of the foot from the correct pivot regardless of the toe's value. I've only tested it through a walk tonight but so far it seems to work pretty well.

Maybe I've finally got control of this monstrous foot on my character. It is a big foot with two toe joints. I use empty groups and my hierarchy currently looks like this.

footCtrl --> toePivot --> toeEndLift --> anklePivot --> heelPivot --> footRock --> toeLift --> ballLift

toeWiggles are under heelPivot

I posted this over at Cg-Char also. Hopefully I am on to something. If you try it out, let me know how it goes. I'd love it if some of you who are more experienced animators than myself would let me know what works or doesn't work for you.

-sam

[bentllama]

seasterling: attach a sample file in a zip for us to test out... :)

[LichiMan]

Great setups!!!

I've uploaded my setup too.
setupLeg.zip (http://lichiman.aniguild.com/things/files/setupLeg.zip)

Cheers...

[seasterling]

bentllama:
Here is an example on a simple foot. Attach the nodes to controls however you prefer. I usually connect whatever channels a particular foot needs as add attrs to the footCtrl.

There is nothing crazy in the setup, just the addition of the anklePivot group above the ballLift but below the ToeLift. The ballLift must be at zero for this to work. The toeLift does NOT have to be at zero however.

The idea is that by the time the foot is off the ground the ballLift can be zeroed out. If the foot is on the ground you can't rotate from the ankle anyway. The anklePivot will give you independent control of the foot (with its pivot still at the ankle where it should be) while the foot is still being rotated by ToeLift. I usually try to zero out the toeLift in a broader movement than when the foot is just leaving the ground, and this setup allows me to do that while still having control of the foot from the ankle. Make sense?

:beer:

[seasterling]

ok, how the heck do I attach something other than a jpg jpeg or gif? faq seems to be dead.

:surprised

[dmcgrath]

I think you have to host it or you can email it to me and I'll host it off my WS.

[bentllama]

Make it a ZIP to upload. I know I did it earlier in this thread. :)

see this post: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=246120#post246120

I can also host it off my site if you like as well...

[seasterling]

It refuses to let me upload the zip. I emailed it to you bentllama. Thanks to both of you guys for the help.

-sam

[bentllama]

HERE IS THE LINK TO SEASTERLING's FILE

http://www.bentllama.com/cgtalk/seleg.zip

note: I am just hosting it for him...check it out...he added a heel control...

sea: as for my feedback...the heel control could be a nice added level of control...I don't know personally if I would use it all that much... I would just have to animate a few scenes to see if I like it or not, and even then I would probably insert the heel control using MEL on a shot by shot [as needed] basis...the less controls I have to select and worry about to get my pose, the faster I animate and think things through :)

...thanks for sharing! :beer:

while we are on the topic of sharing, does anyone else think they can do something to this file to make it more useful? currently there is not a non-graph/outliner way of selecting these controls [except for doing a pickwalk]... it is knda refreshing that these ideas are getting passed around with files and not just text :)

:beer:

[seasterling]

I don't use the heel too much either. I usually add another group at the top of the hierarchy to pivot on the ball as well. You can keep adding empty groups and place pivots wherever you want.

Sorry I didn't finish off the controls. If you already rig with empty groups it shouldn't take but a second to add the anklePivot idea to an existing rig to try it out.

I really just wanted to get the ankle control idea out there to see what others thought. The main point of this rig is that you can roll off the toe and still pivot the foot correctly from the ankle. The pivot no longer gets left behind. This has always been an issue with the reverse foot setup, but it became even more of an issue as I starting rigging a character with really big feet. It's only a partial solution but is working pretty well so far.

Thanks for hosting the file.

-sam

[bentllama]

Thanks again for sharing Sam! :)

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