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Blended Animation

by Michael Berglund · in Torque Game Engine · 01/18/2006 (8:57 am) · 4 replies

Hey guys,

I'm having a problem with blended animation when using IK.

Here is what I'm doing.

I have a fully rigged (custom rig using Max bones) human character.
Both legs have IK and both arms use IK. The problem is in the arms.

When I load the .cs character script in show tools and play the blended animation
the arms(elbows mainly) go crazy. I'm using a point object to manipulate the elbows.
To link the point object to the arm IK, go in the Motion Tab/IK Solver Properties/Pick Target.
That seems to be the problem specifically. Anyone else run into this?

When I uncheck Blend and make it any other kind of animation it works fine.

I have an FK animated animal that uses a few blended animations and
it seems to work in the showtools fine(not in engine, yet) so I don't
think I'm doing anything wrong with the setup for export.

I'm all but certain its my character rig. But if anybody else has run into this
problem while using IK for blended animation and has any information about
a solution I'd appreciate it.


Thanks,

Josh
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Torque 3D Owner Martin "Founder" Hoover
#1
02/12/2006 (12:15 pm)
I have run into this problem before, in my case it was the result of some of the bones having odd translations, the fix being to re-align their pivot points to the world. (though this itself causes other problems which are a pain to deal with).

Do you really need to link in the point to the IK solver that way? I might not really get what you are doing here, but when I use a point dummy as an easy means to control an IK chain, I link the chain to the point via the regular "select and link" button. After doing so you may need to go into the IK solver panel and adjust the swivel angle.

In fact the swivel angle might be what's causing your problems as well.

Torque Owner Tim Heldna
#2
02/12/2006 (6:01 pm)
Ive had almost identical problems. The way i do it is in the main animations I leave the blending unchecked and in the armthreads I check the blending option( I use the blending sparingly ). Try playing around with the priority levels of the animations (higher for the armthreads and 0 for the root animations.

Hope this helps.

Torque 3D Owner Martin "Founder" Hoover
#3
02/15/2006 (5:01 pm)
Another thing to remember for blended animations is that the dsq (if you are using them) only needs to have the nodes (or bones) for the particular animation you are making. In other words, every bone that you do not want the animation to affect can be deleted, or excluded from export to ensure that the movement info only affects the desired bones.

Torque Owner Michael Berglund
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#4
02/21/2006 (9:20 am)
Thanks for the replies guys. We found a work around by making more animations. But in the near future I'll be giving the blended animations another crack and will use the info you gave me.

Thanks again,

Josh