Inverse kinematics in Poser

In general, Inverse Kinematics is very annoying, but sometimes it is useful. Keeping the feet on the floor, or move the hands up and down. I would like to be able to switch it on and off, but every time I switch it off, I have to go through all keyframes fixing the hands again. They seem to flip to some weird position when I turn IV off. does anyone have an idea to fix this, or is it just impossible to use IV in this way ?

The way I use IV is to turn it on when I need to fix either the feet or hands. Edit the keyframe and when it is the way I want I turn IV off before moving to another keyframe where I repeat the process if needed. This seems to work best for me and eliminates many of the problems if you over use IV.

YMMV

That is what I try to do, but as soon as I turn IV off, hands in all frames flip to some weird position.

I think every time you turn IK on/off in Poser, Poser re-does all the interpolation again. I have had to open up the keframes grid and either break spline on keyframes or change the interpolation to Linear to get things back as they were. If I start by making sure IK is turned off - and then if I want to use it to pose a figure, turn it on, pose the figure, then turn IK off - without moving off the frame or saving - then this seems to prevent the problem for me.

I've had that happen, to combat it I set a pose dot just before turning IV off and if it moves when I turn it off I just use the pose dot to reset back.

IV = intravenous

IK = inverse kinematics

Ravanna, that sounds like a good trick. I will also try not to switch frame while having IK turned on. That will be for the next anim though, this one in spoiled now...

And yes, it is IK... haha, I need more coffee (maybe IV )

LOL

I didn't notice the IV instead of IK. I guess that is the result of spending too much time dealing with the medical profession lately. That and a coffee IV might help also.

Maybe its lame to answer one owns questions, but I think I have found the issue with the 'flipping' hands and feet to be caused by the "use limits" function. Somehow inverse kinematics does not respect the limits, and these are reset when unchecking IK.

Next questions to the real animators out there. Do you use limits or not ? Maybe you use limits but different ones to the default ?

I have used both Poser and DAZ/studio (which is free). I am coming to prefer DAZ, although it has some major disadvantages. But one of the best features of DAZ is that you can pin any bone from one end or both ends and of course pin more than one bone at a time. This serves the function of IK but is far more versatile and it has zero unwanted side effects.

Sylvia, I have used DAZ myself. if only the feet would stay on the ground when I turn the dial to move the hip down....Apart from that, and maybe something like the animation window, DAZ would replace Poser immidiatly !

Ah, yes. You have to use the gizmo to move the hip and not the dials and then the feet will stay in place.

By "animation window" are you referring to the Animation Palette? Not that I'm looking to switch, but I'd like to be aware of the differences between the two tools. The joint pinning Sylvia mentioned sounds nifty, but without a keyframe view like the Animation Palette then forget it.

The drawback to DAZ is that the timeline window is quite primative compared to Poser. Keyframes are not displayed and it is not possible to copy/paste or move frames. I get around this with a feature called puppeteer. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AZRYJC9RV8 With puppeteer I can sketch out an animation very quickly and test in SL which is nice for fitting animation to props or on prim heavy avatars. It is difficult to get a really smooth professional animation from puppeteer but I have developed some techniques to help with this. See the thread below starting on post #39 for this discussion. Also see thread below for the necessary DAZ|Studio plug-in BVH exporter. I find using puppeteer to be more fun and intuitive but less precise and have to do some tinkering to smooth it out.


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