Inverse Kinematics Question

I have a simple character set up with all the hierarchies in place, and am attempting to do an animation with IK. I have the upper arms, thighs, and head attached to the Body (the body is the top of the hierarchy) and then each of those drawings have things attached to them, forearms, hands, feet, etc.

My problem is getting the body to move on the Y-axis. I can move limbs correctly, left and right up and down, but I cant move the whole body up and down using IK. My plan was to nail the feet and drag the body down using IK, like my character is squatting, but the body simply won’t move.

If I hit the “Enable Translation” button in the Tool Properties, I can move the body on the x-axis, left to right, and the rig responds correctly to the IK and nails, but it still doesn’t enable up and down movement. Any ideas?

Hmmm… did you accidentally pressed the “Hold Y” button…?
Otherwise, drag the upper legs into a slightly better “pre-squatting” position,
before dragging downwards… Straight legs can be quite stiff to move apart…

Regards
Nolan

No, I made sure not to have the hold y button checked. And yeah, I could “fake” it by the moving legs into a squatting position and then move the whole body down with the transform tool, but I shouldn’t have to. IK is supposed to do that for me :frowning:

http://www.nolanscott.co.nz/Gallery/ik_movement.html

Yes, that is exactly what I was going for. I notice all your layers are under a peg there. Is it necessary to create a peg and place them all there?

Yes, I have all my characters on one top master-peg…
Separating the legs from the rest of the body…
(rather a personal style then a necessity)

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/7497/hierarchyu.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Regards
Nolan

Well, that did it. Thanks so much for your help! At the risk of seeming greedy, I have one more question if you’d oblige me :slight_smile:

Now that I can make my body move, I’m noticing that during the automatic morphing the program makes when I squat my character down, my nailed feet are moving ever so slightly. I’ve nailed them, turned off x and y movement and rotation, but it still moves them.

Anyway to fix this one?

P.S. I noticed in your video that your feet are doing the same thing.

Well, you need to apply “IK Constraints”… to your leg…
Check out the following video demonstrations:
http://www.nolanscott.co.nz/Gallery/ik_constraints_1.html
http://www.nolanscott.co.nz/Gallery/ik_constraints_2.html
(no sound, it’s all fairly simple and straightforward)

Regards
Nolan