Locking a body part in place?

Vially

So I'm playing with animation, and trying to get a feel for what is possible. I'm reviewing a lot of animations that folks are posting and trying to figure out quick ways of doing things. (possably even for sale.)

The biggest issue I am having, and I see it in a LOT of the animations, is what I have come to call the "Ice Skater Syndrome". Essentially limb extremities, I.E. Feet and hands, are set by the hip and shoulder settings. While yes this is why we reach or step up or crouch, feet do not move in the X, Y or Z axis when a bodies weight is placed on it. Hands do not drift forward when leaning back against something or holding it to climb (as in a ladder.)

Basic example of what I am talking about. (March in place)

1. Stand up and put your weight on your left leg. (Pose your favorite character to do the same.)

2. Lift your right leg to your left knee height. (Pose has been destroyed and will need to be rebuilt, to compensate for the hip movement required to shift the hip for "balance")

3. Put your right foot back on the ground. (Pose has again been destroyed and will again need to be rebuilt to recompensate for the character "balance" being shifted.)

A VERY SIMPLE animation, there are in fact presets to do just exactly that, I think its called "bend left leg" or something. It works great, but does not account for any weight balancing. try it, stand up, leave your weight on both feet, now lift your right leg... note how you immediately attempt to balance yourself (or fall over.)

So I guess what I am looking for is a way to LOCK a foot or hand in the X, Y, Z position, while a pose is built around that status.

Need an example? Stand up and as before lift your right leg to left knee height, now look over your right shoulder. Note how much your torso is twisting, from the hip up, (actually from the left foot up, but that's another subject.)

Twist the other way, look over your left shoulder. Do a Karate kick.

go back to default pose.

So, with all those body movements and twists. how much did the foot you have on the ground move along the X, Y and Z axis? My answer is "not a hole heck of a lot". Yes it had roll, twist, side to side, but NOT X, Y or Z.

I've found that pinning translation does nothing, moving the hip moves the foot right along with it. the foot does point to the pinned location, but it still moves. requiring a rebuilt of the entire pose.

And this is really getting monotonous since I just explained a 1/4 of a second long animation, that's 20 frames and each one the pose has to be rebuilt. and I STILL get wandering feet.

Help before I go insane!

3delinquent

You've probably already seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFsOHY9ohMg

I notice at around 0.40 there is still a slight movement in the foot even with the shin locked. Maybe with the foot locked as well? My DS computer is in the shop so I can't check.

Another option might be to create pose controls so when you move something under that controller nothing else should move.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVX-HX7JckA

Admittedly I don't animate so sorry if there's no solution here for you. But I do pose and I know what you're referring to. It's a pain in the proverbial :) A couple of years back I was seeing requests from people asking for 'hard' pins that completely locked everything and allowed no movement whatsoever. You would think pin translation would take care of it.

Good luck sorting something out anyway.

wolf359

Hi this problem  is because Daz studio does not have a 
proper Foot &Hand IK solver such as the ones available in professional Character animation programs 
Reallusion Iclone Pro(for example) has had this feature for over seven years now.

Hopefully Daz will add this ability to Daz studio someday

Vially

3delinquent said:

You've probably already seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFsOHY9ohMg

I notice at around 0.40 there is still a slight movement in the foot even with the shin locked. Maybe with the foot locked as well? My DS computer is in the shop so I can't check.

Another option might be to create pose controls so when you move something under that controller nothing else should move.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVX-HX7JckA

Admittedly I don't animate so sorry if there's no solution here for you. But I do pose and I know what you're referring to. It's a pain in the proverbial :) A couple of years back I was seeing requests from people asking for 'hard' pins that completely locked everything and allowed no movement whatsoever. You would think pin translation would take care of it.

Good luck sorting something out anyway.

Actually no, I hadn't found that one yet, and WOW! It didn't directly solve the problem, but it DID point me to the correct tools where in I might be able to solve it myself. Have already been testing it and can say that if I go slow, I might just be able to get this to work the way I am expecting it to.

Interestingly enough, the Pins under the tool settings for Active Pose work a whole lot differently than just pinning in the pose window. Dont know why, but they are much more robust in controlling "bleed over" movement. Poses can't get too extreme or the pins will break thier locking, but my "march in place" scenario hasn't broken it yet with a hip movement to compensate for weight distribution while lifting the leg.

So I can see a lot of work in front of me, but this gets me past the "%$#%@@ how the &*$##$#%$ do I keep the $#@@% foot in Place!" frustration I've been having. I've moved on to "I KNEW there had to be a way!"

Thank you, I think, (more playing required,) this might be my answer.

 

@Wolf - Thank you for the advertisement, while I may go and review the application, your reply really didn't help me at all as I was asking about how to do this within DAZ Studio. The standard reply of "buy a different software." is not really appreciated at all.

Vially

See, I think all I needed was a push modifier in the correct direction :)

Next video in line was this:

Which explains how to resolve/work around center of gravity issues.

3delinquent

Nice! Good to see you have somewhere to potentially go from here. All that *%!#*! is a !@^&*$! and always good to avoid! :)

wolf359

"your reply really didn't help me at all as I was asking about how to do this within DAZ Studio. The standard reply of "buy a different software." is not really appreciated at all."

Fair enough Mate
My point is that the ability to automaticly
keep the feet pinned during lower body movement
Does not exist in the Daz Studio Software at this time.

Indeed You are in for alot of manual labor for each & every  frame of your animation to avoid foot sliding in Daz studio

You may cobble a decent "march in place" over time
But be assured those "active pose pins" will fail once you try to do any locomotion or  even any partial lateral movements.
and for complex organic movements like dancing,fighting 
or combining aniblok AniMate 2 motion clips it only gets worse.

I assume you at least have invested in the graphmate and keymate plugins from the Daz store.
They will be of great visual help for you as you hand curate each frame of your animation.