Need Help Rigging a Foot

#1

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=190348

Hi, I am in need of some help with rigging a foot. If you can help it would be really appreciated.

#2

Aha! My friend! Now is my turn to help you!!! :wavey:

The best foot solution I recently found out for Blender is something called “Reverse Foot Rigging”.

It involves starting from a “Master Leg” bone and extruding out a Toe Roll Bone which is then folded over the Master Leg bone.

The Toe Roll Bone then is extruded twice. Once to form a “Toe Wiggle” Bone, and then back up the foot to form a “Foot Deform” bone. You then extrude an extra smaller bone from the Foot Deform bone to make an “IK Helper” (that is the lower leg uses an IK constraint pointing to this helper so the Ankles stay connected with lots of deform slack.

From there moving the Master Leg bone allows you to roll the foot on the ankle, while moving the Toe Roll allows the foot to roll on its toe (without foot slide!).

I also drew in what I do for Knee Pointers in case you were looking for that also. :slight_smile:

I wish I could say I invented this solution… but the truth is I just learned this from others. And also I believe this was developed with the famous ManCandy Rig.

#3

Thank you very much my friend. I also saw a tutorial for this revers foot rig on Youtube but I am new to rigging so setting up the FK fir the bones was over my head but your diagram explains it well and I will give it another try.

Just curious, do you understand how to setup the foot rig I posted in the link? I’d like to understand how to setup the FK for the foot so it bends properly. :slight_smile:

#4

Well if you’re talking about the two-toe creature foot you got going there… I think… it can be rigged similarly.

Same idea… Master Leg Bone extrudes a Toe Roller (that really controls the entire Toe area in terms of foot planting), extrude 3 times… one “wiggler” for each toe (you can use more if you want), and one back up the foot to Serve as Foot Deformer. Then you extrude one more for the IK target of the Lower Leg Bone.

The Key to the Rigging of the Legs is the IK Solver… you need the Shin bone to use an IK Solver to point to the IK Helper you extruded out where the ankles would be. In animation you can then say click “Auto IK”, grab the Master Leg bone and just move it around and the Shin compensates. Just make sure the ChainLen in the IK Solver is set to 2 ( I believe this means “chain two bones up” so that should be Thigh and Shin).

While at first this will seem sufficient you will then encounter a problem where the Knees “go chicken” and reverse. So you extrude a disconnected smaller bone from the tip of the Thigh where the knees should be… and setup another IK Solver in the Thigh that follows this smaller disconnected Knee bone.

That should solve it.

#5

Well actually the 2 toed creature is from the tutorial I am following but I am trying the rig the leg to the right of it. I posted the .blend file if you want to take a look. :slight_smile:

#6

Well this thread in Blender artists should be helpful to you and also includes a sample .BLEND file:

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=138727

#7

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Inverse foot rig has been around and has been implemented in different 3d applications. The only challenge I see in the above set-up is: making the orientation of the tibia subject to z-axis rotations of the sole bone (world coordinates). Most tutorials in blender omit this … and its so unnatural. In reality, rotating the foot sideways affect the orientation of the upper bones (intermediate/advanced rigs would still allow for knee adjustments). Seems most tutors are primarily concerned about foot rolls.
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#8

Those are wise words…

But I suspect there is a simple way to fix it? Do you know how?
We are all learners. :slight_smile:

#9

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