I haven’t been using these for around 9 years now to be honest and I never ever had an animator request one from me, even if I have to animate a couple of scenes or a while project myself, I do not even notice or feel the need to have this as well. Are we missing something or we are just tough guys who do not whine so much with the rigs? My animators are very demanding and complain a lot by the way…
Please tell me what you guys think since I am currently building an updated rigging system for myself. Please share your experiences.
PS: What I usually do is just parent the kneePV to the foot controls, this keeps them happy and this is what most animators request from me.
In the past, I’ve built leg rigs with pole vectors out to the side of the leg, then parented them to the ankle. An attribute on the foot control would then twist the knee. You could also layer that with a regular pole vector out in front of the knee and add another attribute to turn that on and off.
The issue with this setup is that doing a matched fk/ik switch becomes a hassle, unless you use the regular pole vector as an override all the time. It becomes difficult to set the knee twist attribute correctly to match the fk leg, since the attribute is usually a value that corresponds to the pole vector’s rotation around the ankle. You could do it with some vector math… but in the end it’s much easier to just use a standard pole vector and put some space switching targets on it (feet, world, COG, etc.).
That last statement could not have been more correct, sometimes a traditional pole vector setup is handier. I was using some sort of no flip knee setup from 2005-2006 and after that, I just did not use it and never felt the difference when me or my animators are working on my rigs…
The animators that I worked with are brutal, they will ask and yell for the smallest of features that they want integrated and I never heard anything from them asking for a no-flip knee setup… We do crazy animations since we do anime stuff here in Tokyo so backlflips,kicks and things of that nature and my rigs are continuously broken or forced to do things it was not even designed to do by the animators, and yet they never complained about the knees.
It is like the classmate that you had in college that nobody notices or cared about and when he dropped out, nobody cared or notice him.
[QUOTE=ricoMambo;21431]It is like the classmate that you had in college that nobody notices or cared about and when he dropped out, nobody cared or notice him.[/QUOTE]
Personally, when animating I can’t stand it when the knee poles are spaced to the feet, but I’m a weirdo. :D:
I think the main thing about no-flip knees isn’t the no flipping, but the fact that the knee follows the foot direction. At work we have the pole vectors pushed forwards along vector created by the hip/knee/ankle triangle, and it’s parented to a null at the hip that rotates on one axis only to match foot orientation. It keeps the knee in line with the foot, but also keeps things very stable when moving other parts.
When rigging for non-VFX shows I tend to create an automatic pole vector using a single chain IK solver. It has the benefits of the no-flip setup, but the pole vector can still be moved. It was popular enough that the rigger working on the other autorig at work copied my implementation for his arms.
But it really does come down to personal preference. I’ve had animators who swear by pole vectors moving in world space always, and others who insist that the only way to work is by using the auto pole vector, hiding the control and using the twist.
Thank you, Kattkieru for sharing your thoughts. Today, I am working on a rig from a client, I am functioning as the TD / animator / Rambo again as usual (sadly).
His PVs are parented or linked to nothing. So I am wasting a lot of time fighting with the rig, and of course, I get the flipping now. This is a good candidate for a no flip setup or simply just parenting the PV’s somewhere. However, I am not allowed to touch the rig at all…
So I conclude that no-flip knee is still relevant, for rigs like this…
[QUOTE=ricoMambo;21448]His PVs are parented or linked to nothing. So I am wasting a lot of time fighting with the rig, and of course, I get the flipping now. This is a good candidate for a no flip setup or simply just parenting the PV’s somewhere. However, I am not allowed to touch the rig at all…[/QUOTE]
Maybe it’s too cheeky, but when I have to animate on a rig like that I add a setup from my autorig and constrain their rig to it, so I don’t have to deal with that kind of stuff. Afterwards I bake the keys back to their rig. :rolleyes:
That’s possible. Did something similar before, but using a “piggy back” IK system to drive a client’s FK skeleton. I do not have the flexibility for that now,though… being hired as a third tier contractor is a pain in this situation
