CGTalk - Maya's own IKFK blending.. anyone using it?

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PacManiac

09-15-2009, 01:39 PM

I'm a bit old school and go the long way around setting up an Ik - fk blend, ie multiple chains and mixing.. and I don't see anyone using Maya's own ikFK blend that's on the IK handle.

To me it seems it's tricky to get this to work if you want to control the fk joints with something else, it blends fine when you control the joints themselves but goes wonky when you set things up in a way any normal rig would've been set up (when the fk joints' rotation is coming from another item).

Is there a way to get this to work properly?

Cheers.

Leffler

09-15-2009, 04:00 PM

I´m also old school, 3 joint chains. The key is using blendColors-node and not constrains IMO, then there is no speedissues that the people that don´t use this method complains about.

I´ve actually never seen a good rig that uses the Maya IK-FK system, it´s just a complicated mess to me. The nice thing about it is the dotted curves in the graph editor, but that´s about all the good things I know, except that it´s easy to setup

PacManiac

09-15-2009, 05:36 PM

Thanks, yes it seems a bit of a waste of a nice idea the way it is now. My main complaint is that unless you're happy with animating the fk joints themselves it doesn't seem to work properly. I hope I'm missing something as I don't think any production rig would pass with that drawback imho.

I haven't had any speed issues really with constraints, is that a common opinion to use blendColors nodes instead?

royg

09-15-2009, 10:02 PM

Victor Vinyals (http://www.luvictu.com/) apparently used Maya's native IK / FK switching for the rig in his (amazing) reel.

Leffler

09-16-2009, 04:52 PM

Victor Vinyals (http://www.luvictu.com/) apparently used Maya's native IK / FK switching for the rig in his (amazing) reel.

Do you know that? Because the exaxt same behavior can be made with 3 chains, since he uses the marking menues he might call a mel script to snap it there, just like I do

Not sure how Victor does though

royg

09-16-2009, 07:25 PM

How do I know that? Victor's post (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4649501&postcount=148)

Buexe

09-17-2009, 08:28 AM

On traditional "vanilla" rigs, I switched to Maya`s FK/IK system, as it is okay IMHO. Can`t say though that is has anything spectacular over the 3-chain method, it simply works.

Leffler

09-17-2009, 08:28 PM

How do I know that? Victor's post (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4649501&postcount=148)

Okey, I wasn´t sure.

The problem I have with that system is if you want automatic scaling of the joint in X when you are in IK, and then using the translateX channel for locking the elbow, you can´t get stretch in BOTH ik and fk mode. That´s why I use 3 chains, then its just blendnodes and call it a day

That´s my MAIN reason. I also think mayas system is messy when you change the timing and start moving keys around in the graph editor, but that can be messy with 3 chains too sooo ...

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