Hips IK

Ik Foot pinning might be the next step. But I am not able to setup a IK handle for the pelvis/hips! This is what I don't understand with umotion. The inverse cinematics video shows only the arm setup! For what, if that is already working in the setup wizard?!!! How to setup the IK handle for the hips? That is what I need and is sitll missing everywhere. 

I need a handle on the hips that grabs the lower and upper body at once, as in Unity's Animation Rigging examples, where the hip solver is a complete different one than the arms/feet. A hip handle that rotates the hips separately, but moves the whole body. I have the feeling that there is no real good solution for that, because it was never really considered. I can only refer to Animation Rigging Package from Unity, where there is a special solver for this, and/or better Cascadeuer, which will be the soltution for me, in the end. 

I don't understand why people are not screaming after it. Because a full body IK is much more dynamic than what Umotion as a whole seems to offer. There is not one real impressive IK setup for umotion anywhere to find. 

Don't get me wrong. I can imagine how hard it was to write umotion. However, my demands as an animator have increased over time, especially in these new times where something like this should automatically be a part of it.

I will stick with Cascadeur, since this is the future if it comes to animating humanoids.

Thank you for reply

All the best

I need a handle on the hips that grabs the lower and upper body at once

That's default FK behavior. If you select the hips bone, both upper and lower body are going to move with it. No need to do an IK setup for that. UMotion does that by default.

Ik Foot pinning might be the next step. But I am not able to setup a IK handle for the pelvis/hips!

When you have IK enabled on your legs (which the IK setup wizard does automatically for you if you have a character configured as humanoid), you do not need an IK handle on the hips. You just select the hips bone and move/rotate it around. If feet are pinned, they are going to stay in place. Upper body is going to move with the hips. If hands are pinned, hands are also going to stay in place etc.

If you are looking for something else, please describe in more detail of what your hips IK actually is going to do or maybe show a quick video of what feature you are referring to in animation rigging or Cascadeur. That would give me a clearer picture.

Best regards,
Peter

This is told no where and should be documented at least in text, to give the users a perspektive how a "full body solution" with IK works.

I'll give it a another try then!

Thank you!

A bit hard to get these information out of you xD Because a user in another post regarding the same problem already asked you the same question. And as far as I remember he did not get an answer to that. Also the last user of the same post asked the same question without a reply.

I then suggest to put <IK pinned buttons> for Legs & Arms for the scene view in the next update, since those are constantly used, when animating! Because it is important to keep the eyes where they should belong, in middle of complex movements.

However, thank you for this very important information. Ofc it makes sense afterwards.

Still, animating the hips separately from the spine or chest is not possible, because when I rotate the hips for a run animation the torso rotates with it, which means I have to rotate the torso back, which gives not precise results. Is there a way to unbind the hips from the spine regarding the rotation, but keep the link for movement?

Here comes the next issue: I recorded a new screen capture to explain the problem better. This time the video is listed! 

I don't see the reason why umotion has to insert keyframes, if the IK handles are recorded already, just because I rotate the shoulders. The system should be constantly dynamic, same as in Animation Rigging Package. What now?

Another video that explains the problem a bit better.

If you make a modification (e.g. change the pinning state) and do not create a key frame for that change, then your change is not going to be stored in the animation clip. If you then change the position of the frame cursor, UMotion asks you if you really want to continue because you are going to loose your modifications. That's what happened in the beginning of the video.

If you just want your IK Pinning to be temporarily (for editing purposes of a single pose/frame), enable IK Pinning (without key framing the change), then rotate the shoulders, then disable pinning. In the last step, create key frames for your changes. Do NOT just skip the modifications dialog! If you get this dialog, you have not key framed all your changes of the pose thus resulting in a wrong animation. Check which bones are still displayed in red and carefully think if you really do not want this change to be included in the animation.

"Why does IK Pinning create a second key frame?"

This is necessary, because when enabling IK Pinning you are changing the coordinate system. Without this second key frame, the animation curve would smoothly interpolate from values of one coordinate system to values from a completely different coordinate system resulting in garbage. IK Pinning uses the child-of constraint under the hood. This behavior is explained in this video tutorial:
https://www.soxware.com/umotion-manual/ProLesson3.html

"Do I have to make the left hand's IK handle a child of the gun in order to keep it's offset?"

For two handed weapons, it often makes sense to do that, yes. Here is a description how you can parent an IK handle to a gun: https://support.soxware.com/communities/1/topics/100-two-handed-animations-for-gun#comment-113

Start at point 4). Also make sure to do the parenting at frame 0 in your case.

Sorry, I don't get it. Totally not! I am so erxhausted by your system that I have to give up. If you don't do a full tutorial video where I can see what you do, not hear - SEE, in a full process without any verbally explanation, I won't be able to follow you! This is the worst documentation style I ever dealed with

You think just by explaining in super long sentances, with a still video, where you almost demonstrate NOTHING, that veryone can follow. No, because I am person that learns by LOOKING at it, not hearing the same terms on and on, and loosing the connection, because there is no real practice of a FULL BODY IK SETTING PLUS WORKFLOW. That's the difference between programmers and designers! Keep that in mind.

Sorry, nothing personal, but I am totally desperate, exhausted, have headache because I can't sleep anymore, not more than 3-4 hours, because I can't deliver what needs to be delivered. And I am not even that far, because with Umotion I am still at the beginning, where everything fails already.

In the end I need a baked animation without IK. And I tried different recorders on a Unity Animation Rigging Package based setting, and the results end up in wrong curves etc. I never came that far with Umotion and nothing tells me that Umotion can handle a correct baking of the IK animations too!


I give up!

UMotion has dozens of tutorials, some of which explain the theoretical background and some of which guide you through practical examples. There are even third-party youtubers that have created video tutorials for UMotion (in case you do not like my video tutorial style).

Here you have an overview of all available video tutorials: https://www.soxware.com/umotion-manual/VideoTutorials.html

The "UMotion In-Practice" series shows practical examples, like this one:

https://www.soxware.com/umotion-manual/InPractice3.html

Best regards,
Peter

Thank you, but no! Looking again how IK pinning works in your system just hurts. I don't know any system that generates keys infront of my custom keys, just to correct something. And I did it as you said by generatin pinning keys, in all the 3 steps of the animation, but it the "correction keys" that are generated afterwards just destroy the animation!T he process alone is immensely daunting!

I give it up! It's sensless. 

Is there a way to unbind the hips from the spine regarding the rotation, but keep the link for movement?

From my original answer:

If for some specific reason you also want to decouple the upper body from the hips, you need to setup an IK chain for the spine. Take a look at this step-by-step description: https://support.soxware.com/communities/1/topics/957-hips?redirect_to_reply=2559#comment-1612

And as far as I remember he did not get an answer to that. Also the last user of the same post asked the same question without a reply.

As far as I know there shouldn't be any unanswered questions. Could you post a link pointing to the posts in case I missed replying on one?

Best regards,
Peter

After I won't come back I'd like to say some things:

You have to think along from the designer perspektive, talk lesser about all the circumstances that one should take into account, although the user does not yet have the system learned and create a video tutorial with a fully body IK that SHOWS a complete workflow, instead of giving the people a 5 minunte a static picture where you try to explain simply too much in advance. 

And yes, I can't hear your voice anymore, because the only thing I hear the whole time is  "this depends on that, and take care of this, and that"...  SHOW ME and then comment to it. Not before! 

And a system that sets his owns keys, just shows that you did something wrong when planning to make Umotion. Because this is called a workaround, which is the last thing we do when we develop our games for our clients. We rethink and rewrite the issues until they work out as they should!

I had many systems infront of me over the past 35 years in my career. And yes, I have a carreer in that field. Believe it or not.

But a system that enters keys by itself, where the result becomes even worse - is not one.

Umotion is far from intuitive and if it is - then your tutorials aren't!

Think of it, or ignore it. Your thing. I am definitely done with it.

And btw, you can count the few tutorials from other users on one hand. And they all work with only existing/imported animations. 98% of your users have no clue about what could be done, because they don't animate. They are mostly pseudo indies who use premade animations. And those who can achieve something great with your tool they don't show themselve anywhere.

Unity and it's community is nothing more than an outdated system that attracts the young, inexperienced, wannabe game developers who are largely your customers.

And that's why you don't take any more effort in new tutorials and that's why you refer to your old stuff. Except you wanna show a new feature.

That said, fare well.