non-child joints in game rig?

#1

Hi, I’m haven’t done much rigging for games…

I’ve got a quick question regarding joints that are not under the root hierarchy of a game rig.

I’ve seen an example of doing wrist and ankle joints in relation to a 3 chain ik/fk switch setup, as free floating, where they are point constrained to the last child of the skin leg joint (at the same position of the floating ankle) then orient constrained to both the ik and fk wrist/ankle controls. This seems to give the joint more freedom, in terms of following the ik but allowing it’s own rotations.

I’m under the impression that most game engines won’t see these joints, as they arn’t under the root. Am I correct in assuming that these joints won’t show up in game?

If so, what so you suggest for a workaround while maintaining the most amount of control over my ankles and wrists?

#2

Bumpity bump

I’m thinking about either udk or cryengine for this.

#3

In many cases, there is an extensive animation rig, with Controllers, IK Handles, IKFK switches, broken hierarchies and whatnot, that drives a sceleton with an identical layout, and an intact hierarchy via parent constraints. Only this skeleton gets exported. Its described here for the Cryengine: http://seithcg.com/wordpress/?page_id=316

#4

Thanks for the reply, antweiler. I’ll look into this and post my results. I have been using the 3 chain ik/fk switch for the arms and legs. The ik and fk chains share the same parent (collar/hip bones). I see the benefit of doing the whole skinned skeleton separate now.

Edit: I just thought I’d let anyone who searches this know that a control rig skeleton driving a secondary skeleton works just fine.

#5

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