IK Chains... Is there a tutorial? Anything? When I google IK daz I get questions from 2014...

Paradigm

I'm trying to figure out IK chains because I want to have figures to be dependant on each other. I'm trying a basic set up to chain hands together so if I move one the other follows it. 

I create a new chain and... then what? No information at all provided. When I try to make the chain end on another figure's hand DS just crashes.

nonesuch00

I'd recommend searching for Blender IK tutorials and learning that & then coming back to apply that knowledge to DAZ Studio IK animation. LOL, only because that's what I'm going to do myself. 

Richard Haseltine

Have a look at the DS 4.12 beta and release threads in the Daz Studio Discussion forum.

narkfestmojo

create the IK node (I just click on the body part and tick pin translation/rotation)

go to scene tab, right click->Show->tick Show Hidden Node

Within the figure tree in scene tab, you should see something like "IK Genesis 8 Female : Left Hand" if you pinned the left hand of G8F.

You can drag and drop this into something else, for example the hand of another character if you want to create a hand shake.

 

kwannie

narfestmojo, that was really great information.  I tried it several ways, pinned hip trans  and rot of one character and dragged IK onto the head of another character then  used the head bend slider of that character to move the first charcter  up and down . I then did it with a foot and a plane primative to use the plane to move the characters leg all around. So bottom line whatever the IK chain is parented to controls it. Do you know if this hols true in an animation is applied to the character? Will the foot for example remain parented to the plane?

kwannie

I just tried baking a short Aniblock to the timeline and again pinned the trans and rotation of one foot the the in the scene tab dropped the IK chain onto a plane. I can go to any frame along the timeline and use the plane to move the foot and actually key a position for the plane and the foot stays where it was moved just for that frame, but goes right back to normal for the remainder of the animation.

wolf359

kwannie said:

I just tried baking a short Aniblock to the timeline and again pinned the trans and rotation of one foot the the in the scene tab dropped the IK chain onto a plane. I can go to any frame along the timeline and use the plane to move the foot and actually key a position for the plane and the foot stays where it was moved just for that frame, but goes right back to normal for the remainder of the animation.

According to Ivy summers You will have to manually keyframe the position of the foot/leg for each movement .

Richard Haseltine

kwannie said:

I just tried baking a short Aniblock to the timeline and again pinned the trans and rotation of one foot the the in the scene tab dropped the IK chain onto a plane. I can go to any frame along the timeline and use the plane to move the foot and actually key a position for the plane and the foot stays where it was moved just for that frame, but goes right back to normal for the remainder of the animation.

As I recall baking an AniBlock puts a key on every frame, or close to, so that will fight any attempt to adjust - you may need to selectively delete intermediate keys first, leaving a smoothed-out version of the AniBlock, then go in to edit it by adding new keys or adjusting the existing ones (if I am remembering correctly).

kwannie

Bottomline, then the IK system cannot be applied to existing animations correct?

Richard Haseltine

kwannie said:

Bottomline, then the IK system cannot be applied to existing animations correct?

Yes, this (if I am write about the issue) is true of any approach to editing a baked animation - if it is indeed the case that every frame is a keyframe then in order to edit the aniamtion you will need to edit each frame, or thin the keys out to give a more manageable sequence of keys. You might check casual's free scripts - I (very) vaguely recall that he has a script that will thin out dense runs of keys.

wolf359

@the OP.. go here https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/ look for the "decimator" script you will need it edit ,baked to timeline aniblocks, as there will be a key frame for very frame.... Daz studio animator Ivy Summers may have some more info regarding your having to manually keyframe the pinned/unpinned the state of your IK chain each time you wish to move a foot etc.

Richard Haseltine

To animate pinning use the Reach parameter - when it is zero only local transforms are used, when it is 1 the IK values are used, intermediate values mix. Reach is animatable,

kwannie

You lost me on that one Richard, what reach parameter are you refering to?

marble

kwannie said:

You lost me on that one Richard, what reach parameter are you refering to?

Exactly. That's why a tutorial is needed. Great that people here want to help but constanly releasing updates and features without guidance on how to use them is just bad practice.

Cinus

I just tried using the "Reach" parameters for an IK-Chain, and it does not appear to make any difference. The pins are ignored between keyframes. Setting Reach to 0 gives the exact same result as setting it to 100. What am I missing ?

I attached three images from a simple animation showing a foot at frames 0, 8 and 15. Foot was pinned at frame 0 and pinned at frame 15, but it moved considerably between frame 0 and 15 as can be seen in frame 8. 

Thanks

wolf359

kwannie said:

You lost me on that one Richard, what reach parameter are you refering to?

Here is an example of animatable reach effectors In Unity engine.

Richard Haseltine

Did you use the IK target to move the foot?

kwannie

Thanks wolf, I actully know what a reach target is from using it in Iclone, I just don't how it works in DAZ. Obviously in DAZ you won't be able to add any of the IK tools to an active animation like in Unity...........unfortunately.

Richard Haseltine

kwannie said:

Thanks wolf, I actully know what a reach target is from using it in Iclone, I just don't how it works in DAZ. Obviously in DAZ you won't be able to add any of the IK tools to an active animation like in Unity...........unfortunately.

Why not? The issues here are with baked AniBlocks, which are a special case.

Cinus

Richard Haseltine said:

Did you use the IK target to move the foot?

I'm assuming your question is directed at me, but I'm afraid I do not understand the question ? The idea is to keep the right foot (or more correctly the toes) pinned to the cylinder (ground) while the left foot and body does a kicking motion. The right toes should remain put during the 15 frame animation cycle. It would be OK for them to rotate slightly, but there should be no translation. How would I go about achieving that ?

Thanks 

kwannie

Richard, I have had the same issues when trying to apply the IK chain before or after importing a BVH onto the figure. So other than using an Aniblock or importing a BVH the only other way to get an animation is to manually key the animation in a DS session and save as an animation. I assume you are saying that the IK system works on an animation as it is being created, which again is simply adding the IK to a particullar node as it is keyed in the timeline.  What I am saying is that there is no way to add the IK chain to a preveously created and saved animation, based on my meager experiments. If there is please explain how it is done if you don't mind.

Cinus

Cinus said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Did you use the IK target to move the foot?

I'm assuming your question is directed at me, but I'm afraid I do not understand the question ? The idea is to keep the right foot (or more correctly the toes) pinned to the cylinder (ground) while the left foot and body does a kicking motion. The right toes should remain put during the 15 frame animation cycle. It would be OK for them to rotate slightly, but there should be no translation. How would I go about achieving that ?

Thanks 

Richard, I realised after my reply that your question was not directed at me, but I would still like to know how to pin a foot (or any other body part) and have it stay pinned during an animation.

Thanks 

wolf359

Richard Haseltine said:

kwannie said:

Thanks wolf, I actully know what a reach target is from using it in Iclone, I just don't how it works in DAZ. Obviously in DAZ you won't be able to add any of the IK tools to an active animation like in Unity...........unfortunately.

Why not? The issues here are with baked AniBlocks, which are a special case.

There is nothing "special" About the keyframes from a baked aniblock....culling them with the mcasual script will make all of the manual effector key framing in the daz system a bit less tedious however.

Richard Haseltine

wolf359 said:

Richard Haseltine said:

kwannie said:

Thanks wolf, I actully know what a reach target is from using it in Iclone, I just don't how it works in DAZ. Obviously in DAZ you won't be able to add any of the IK tools to an active animation like in Unity...........unfortunately.

Why not? The issues here are with baked AniBlocks, which are a special case.

 

There is nothing "special" About the keyframes from a baked aniblock....culling them with the mcasual script will make all of the manual effector key framing in the daz system a bit less tedious however.

That's what I meant by special - they have a key in each frame, which a more typical animation will not. Though, as I understand it, the Reach parameters on a chain should override pose sliders (but I'm not a good animator and may have the concepts muddled).

kwannie

Cinus, you could easily acheive pinning one foot completely stationary throughout the duration of any animation with mcasual's autoulimb, or Glue to the floor by 3D universe, but that means really stationary the pinned node doesn't move at all.

wolf359

kwannie said:

Cinus, you could easily acheive pinning one foot completely stationary throughout the duration of any animation with mcasual's autoulimb, or Glue to the floor by 3D universe, but that means really stationary the pinned node doesn't move at all.

3D Universe made it VERY clear his "glue to floor" was NOT an Ik system for animation but for still pose Making. Perhaps mcasuals autolimb could help.. Never tried it myself.

Cinus

kwannie said:

Cinus, you could easily acheive pinning one foot completely stationary throughout the duration of any animation with mcasual's autoulimb, or Glue to the floor by 3D universe, but that means really stationary the pinned node doesn't move at all.

I have used McCasual's scripts and they do help, but they are not perfect either.

I was under the impression that the new IK-Chains would enable actual pinning, but I have not been able to get them to work the way I expect them to. Might just be an issue of not having the right information (I hope). 

Richard Haseltine

Cinus said:

kwannie said:

Cinus, you could easily acheive pinning one foot completely stationary throughout the duration of any animation with mcasual's autoulimb, or Glue to the floor by 3D universe, but that means really stationary the pinned node doesn't move at all.

I have used McCasual's scripts and they do help, but they are not perfect either.

I was under the impression that the new IK-Chains would enable actual pinning, but I have not been able to get them to work the way I expect them to. Might just be an issue of not having the right information (I hope). 

Pinning is still set up so that transforms are an irresistible force. Absolute pinning, in which pinned items are immovable objects, is on the drawing board but with no timeline for implementation (the last I was told).

wolf359

Richard Haseltine said:

Cinus said:

kwannie said:

Cinus, you could easily acheive pinning one foot completely stationary throughout the duration of any animation with mcasual's autoulimb, or Glue to the floor by 3D universe, but that means really stationary the pinned node doesn't move at all.

I have used McCasual's scripts and they do help, but they are not perfect either.

I was under the impression that the new IK-Chains would enable actual pinning, but I have not been able to get them to work the way I expect them to. Might just be an issue of not having the right information (I hope). 

Pinning is still set up so that transforms are an irresistible force. Absolute pinning, in which pinned items are immovable objects, is on the drawing board but with no timeline for implementation (the last I was told).

Why is there so much Focus on making your "pins" "immovable" when People like Kwannie( who obviously knows of what he speaks), is asking about consistant foot/floot contact solving DURING ANIMATION both key framed or Canned motion from aniblocks etc. Look again at the Unity "Final IK" video I posted earlier.... That is Human IK dynamic foot contact solving during Locomotion.... Daz Should be trying to implement this ability if indeed they wish to be taken seriously as a character animation platform Dont worry about having to Change the G8-9 rigging.... Consider creating a simplified Low poly control rig that can retarget its motion to Genesis ,within Daz studio, as it is done in Maya , your foundation & proof of concept already exists in Daz studio as we have shown in this thread....https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3675321/ This would be a better approach that would affect only animators and the rest could ignore it with no effect on PA product compatibility etc.

Richard Haseltine

wolf359 said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Cinus said:

kwannie said:

Cinus, you could easily acheive pinning one foot completely stationary throughout the duration of any animation with mcasual's autoulimb, or Glue to the floor by 3D universe, but that means really stationary the pinned node doesn't move at all.

I have used McCasual's scripts and they do help, but they are not perfect either.

I was under the impression that the new IK-Chains would enable actual pinning, but I have not been able to get them to work the way I expect them to. Might just be an issue of not having the right information (I hope). 

Pinning is still set up so that transforms are an irresistible force. Absolute pinning, in which pinned items are immovable objects, is on the drawing board but with no timeline for implementation (the last I was told).

 

Why is there so much Focus on making your "pins" "immovable" when People like Kwannie( who obviously knows of what he speaks), is asking about consistant foot/floot contact solving DURING ANIMATION both key framed or Canned motion from aniblocks etc. Look again at the Unity "Final IK" video I posted earlier.... That is Human IK dynamic foot contact solving during Locomotion.... Daz Should be trying to implement this ability if indeed they wish to be taken seriously as a character animation platform Dont worry about having to Change the G8-9 rigging.... Consider creating a simplified Low poly control rig that can retarget its motion to Genesis ,within Daz studio, as it is done in Maya , your foundation & proof of concept already exists in Daz studio as we have shown in this thread....https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3675321/ This would be a better approach that would affect only animators and the rest could ignore it with no effect on PA product compatibility etc.

I'm not seeing a connection between my comment and that.

Ivy

Cinus said:

I just tried using the "Reach" parameters for an IK-Chain, and it does not appear to make any difference. The pins are ignored between keyframes. Setting Reach to 0 gives the exact same result as setting it to 100. What am I missing ?

I attached three images from a simple animation showing a foot at frames 0, 8 and 15. Foot was pinned at frame 0 and pinned at frame 15, but it moved considerably between frame 0 and 15 as can be seen in frame 8. 

Thanks

I have been asking for documents for the new IK-chain and timeline integrations since it was released in beta .  I have tried a number of ways to use the new IK-chain.  for varies FK/IK techniques trying to use the Maya LT and poser 11 documents, none of which daz ik follows in the settings . There is a number of thing i can do successfully with the daz IK-chain one of them is make a subject grasp and un-graps objs , another is using it as a follower parenting one hand to a object and pin the ik-chain of the other hand to the same oject to make the bones follow each other,.  But when it comes to making daz characters feet follow a hard surface, the only way I have been able to do it is I have to set the floor value for each keyframe that touches the floor pane and pin and unpin those ik-cains on keyframes according to how the foot touches the floor pane. I don't see where saves any time than doing it manually with FK.

its madding to to do these IK solutions with out proper documents.    i have set some examples here https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/341006/daz-studio-pro-beta-version-4-12-0-85-updated/p12

Your screen shots appear your doing better than I am, at least its not stretching out the foot after its been unpinned.  like this one issue i am having https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/353851/daz-studio-4-12-pro-general-release/p5

 documents for my soul