Cineversity

The option for “All Playlists with this Tutorial” is missing from this series.  Please fix.

Thank you.

Greetings,

We have fixed this problem.

You can watch all tutorials now in the IF/FK Arm Playlist: http://www.cineversity.com/vidplaylist/ik_fk_arm

~Michelle

Thank you, Michelle.

I have a question regarding part 1B.  In the tutorial, the instructor has the FK and IK controllers following their respective chains, so IK controllers and linked to the IK chain and FK controllers are linked to the FK chain.  Makes sense, but what about the Blend chain?  The one the actual mesh is going to follow / be deformed by?

Wouldn’t it be better to have all of the controllers following the Blend chain instead?  If not, then the controllers will start to spread apart during the animation process, no?

I’m just starting out in 3D and have only done rudimentary animations, so maybe my question makes no sense.  I dunno.

It gets very complicated trying to do it the way you mention. Because You have something that needs to follow something that it needs to control. So you have the potential for bad dependency loops. With 3 chains, it keeps everything separate and clear. Yes, they can come apart during animation, but then there are scripts to match the IK to the FK or vice versa.

The way you mentioned, though, you would be turning on and off all sorts of constraints. The FK would need to follow the Blend when in IK mode, but then when switched the blend has to follow. It seems theoretically possible, however, you still have 3 separate structures for controlling it.

So short answer is it’s cleaner and simpler with the 3 different chains.

Bret,

Thank you for getting back to me.  On the side, I’d like to mention I really enjoyed following your biped rigging series.  Thank you for taking the time to put that together.

You mention in your response that there are “scripts to match the IK to the FK or vice versa.”  Is there anywhere on Cineversity, or elsewhere, that explains what those might be and how to use them?

Also, I’m currently following Cactus Dan’s arm rigging tutorial and following along using the native C4D toolset.  I’m not finished yet, but from what I understand, there are ways of having the IK/FK set up using a single chain.  If I’m following along correctly, it would seem like a much simpler solution.  Are there dis/advantages to using a single joint chain over three?

Again, thank you for getting back to me and congratulations on your success at Sony & personal success in starting a family.

All the best,

Jerome Olivier

EDIT: Sorry, I didn’t realize there was a third solution you offered in the series.  Should have been more careful before posting.