It is possible to make "Soft-IK" rigs (if googling doesn't help, I could probably write down a simple tutorial) that slow down when approaching the full extension, but they have a different problem: the final position of a Soft-IK joint is no longer precise, so you can't put a hand on a table and expect it to stay there -…
When using a solver, like IK/HI, limb movement is difficult to get right because whenever they are extended to fa they 'pop' into a strait line, which look extremely unnatural and is a pita to avoid. Is there some way to avoid this issue when making a rig?
Thanks for the info! I'm reading up on Soft IK now. That does seem like quite the drawback though. Do most animators just us an IK/FK toggle for times when they want more precise extended limb movements?
What also helps against the "ik popping" is to have more bend in the knee joint than in the skinned geometry, when doing the rig. This way animators will less likely get into the critical zone of almost straight joints. During animation, a good way to manually adress ik popping for feet is to use a foot roll setup. Using…
No, I wouldn't say switching to FK helps in such cases; when you want a hand to stay on a table while the body moves about, FK would be a really bad idea. Usually FK is used for movements requiring precise arcs (like arm swings in a walkcycle), while IK is used for precise end positioning, either on objects (hand on a…